‘We’ve got to find answers’: Corby families affected by cancer searching for truth about toxic waste sites
Alison Gaffney and Andy Hinde received the devastating news that their 17-month-old son, Fraser, had a rare type of leukaemia in 2018.Two years of gruelling treatment followed, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy, before a stem cell transplant. Fraser, then aged three, made a “miraculous recovery” from the surgery, before doctors declared the cancer in remission.It was at this point, as Fraser started to recover and grow stronger, that Gaffney, 36, began to look for answers. She could not stop thinking about comments made by hospital staff at the time of her son’s diagnosis. “It keeps us up at night wondering how Fraser got his cancer,” a consultant had told her.Fraser started to recover after two years of gruelling treatment and a stem cell transplant. At this point, Gaffney began looking for answers. Photograph: Fabio de Paola/The GuardianThe botched disposal of millions of tonnes of contaminated waste after the closure of Europe’s largest steelworks in Corby, Northamptonshire, in 1979 had “always been a known thing”, said Gaffney. A 2009 civil case linked the council’s negligent clean-up of the site to a string of birth defects in local children in the 1980s and 1990s. It was later dramatised in the 2025 Netflix series Toxic Town.Increasingly, Gaffney started to link the case to her own. “[Fraser’s cancer is] not genetic,” she said. “So what are the reasons? … It’s got to be down to the town. All these kids [with] cancer.“Everybody in this town knows somebody who’s got a child [with] cancer. That’s not normal.”Gaffney and Hinde started to connect with other families in Corby with similar stories to theirs – including some of Gaffney’s former classmates at Brooke Weston Academy – and the group began compiling detailed records on those affected. They now lead a campaign representing about 130 families with cases of childhood cancer dating back to 1988.The group has been calling on the local authority to investigate any links between cases of childhood cancer in Corby and the decommissioning of the plant. At the end of this month, public health officials are set to publish their analysis of whether the town has had a disproportionate number of cases of childhood cancer for its population of 70,000.“All we want is to try and protect future people so they do not have to endure the pain that we’ve been through,” said Gaffney.Fraser, his brother, Archer, and their parents. Gaffney and Hinde started connecting with other families in Corby with similar stories to theirs and the group began compiling detailed records on those affected. Photograph: Fabio de Paola/The GuardianThe judgment in the 2009 civil claim accepted that, between 1983 and 1997, millions of tonnes of contaminated materials from the steel plant were transported “almost invariably” from the south of Corby to Deene Quarry in the north – with “large quantities” of toxic waste carried and dropped on public roads and “substantial quantities” of dust created by the reclamation.However, it also cited reports from the Environment Agency in 1997 that found stockpiles of contaminated material that had been left at Deene Quarry were later removed in “large quantities”.Gaffney believes waste was not only dumped at the Deene Quarry site but in other parts of the town. On Thursday, she welcomed a “major step forward” after North Northamptonshire council said it would test land that could be contaminated and investigate where toxic waste was dumped.Gaffney said council staff admitted in the meeting that they did not know where the sites of contaminated waste could be. “They said: ‘We don’t know where these sites are. We have no documentation, we have nothing on it.’”In a statement to the Guardian, North Northamptonshire council said the information they had seen from that time “says that the waste was disposed of in Deene Quarry, a former landfill site on the outskirts of Corby”, but added: “People have recently raised concerns on potential areas of contaminated land where they believe waste could also have been historically disposed of.“We are thoroughly reviewing historic records to see if there is any information which suggests that disposal could have taken place elsewhere. This work will take time.”A play area in a housing development that was built after the steelworks closed down. Gaffney believes toxic waste from the steelworks was dumped at sites other than Deene Quarry. Photograph: Fabio de Paola/The GuardianGaffney said the transparent nature of the meeting with the council shocked them. “Local authorities don’t normally hold their hands up and take this on but we’re really proud of them for doing so and saying they want to protect their people, like we do.”The council’s announcement was also welcomed by Tonia Shalgosky, a pastoral lead at a primary school, whose nine-year-old daughter, Bella, was diagnosed with blood cancer in June this year.“I had to shave my nine-year-old daughter’s head because her hair was falling out from the drugs she had to take to kill her cancer. So actually it’s in our interest, it’s in Bella’s interest [for the council] to share that information,” she said.“There are so many people in the town that have been diagnosed with childhood cancer and I just feel it’s too much to ignore – it needs looking at it. This can’t be normal.”Meg Lyons, 31, who works in sales and now lives in London, said families deserved “complete and utter truth and transparency” from the council.Lyons’s 11-year-old sister, Eve, died on 24 June 2017 after being diagnosed with a rare bone cancer at the age of nine. Eve, who fundraised for Stand Up To Cancer, was “one of the most lovable, funniest and kindest” people, Lyons said.Her mother remembers the impact of the closure of the steel plant on the town, Lyons said. “She said you couldn’t put your hand in front of your face because [of] the red ash.”Meg Lyons’s sister, Eve, died in June 2017 after being diagnosed with a rare bone cancer at the age of nine. Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian“This has been going on since I’ve probably been about three years old. It’s an excessive amount of time and it is negligence toward the people of Corby.”Lyons’s cousin, Maggie Mahon, was one of several families involved in the 2009 claim against the then Corby council after her baby was born with clubfoot. Her husband, Derek, was one of the lorry drivers involved in removing waste from the steelworks. Their story was depicted in the Toxic Town series, and showed Maggie beating the dust from her husband’s jeans.Gaffney said the campaign group has been approached by whistleblowers who were involved in the dumping of waste in the town.One of those involved in the waste removal was Gaffney’s father. “He drove the lorry and dumped [the waste in a] pond,” she said. “At the time, everyone had lost their jobs so everyone took on any job that you could.”“He wasn’t even licensed to drive a lorry. He said: ‘Me and the other guys weren’t licensed but they had us drive these big lorries through the town, just dumping it,’” she said.Gaffney says the campaign group has been approached by whistleblowers who were involved in the dumping of waste in the town. Photograph: Fabio de Paola/The GuardianThe lawyer involved in the 2009 civil claim, Des Collins, is now representing Gaffney and other cancer families. He said only a statutory public inquiry would ensure the full truth is uncovered.“Environmental testing, in order to rule out causation, is a highly complex process requiring stringent parameters and oversight to allow for reliance on its findings,” he said.“No matter how genuine the council’s new approach, I am compelled to point out that, in my experience, only a statutory public inquiry has the capability both to reassure the public that the full truth has been uncovered and to set out the lessons to be learned.”In a statement the leader of the council, Martin Griffiths, said the meeting with Gaffney and Hinde “marked the start of the parties’ commitment to work together in an open, positive and constructive way for the benefit of Corby residents”.The council said it was committed to full transparency and would set up a working group, which will include Gaffney, to examine public health and contamination issues in Corby.Gaffney is hopeful testing on land in Corby will begin once the group has been established. “Now, every family that comes through, I’m listening to their stories and it’s so hard. If anything, it just gives us that further fight,” she said.“Each time it just chips away and then makes your fight stronger, because you’re thinking: ‘We’ve got to find answers for these children.’”
Alison Gaffney believes her son’s rare leukaemia was caused by dumped toxic waste from the town’s steelworksAlison Gaffney and Andy Hinde received the devastating news that their 17-month-old son, Fraser, had a rare type of leukaemia in 2018.Two years of gruelling treatment followed, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy, before a stem cell transplant. Fraser, then aged three, made a “miraculous recovery” from the surgery, before doctors declared the cancer in remission. Continue reading...
Alison Gaffney and Andy Hinde received the devastating news that their 17-month-old son, Fraser, had a rare type of leukaemia in 2018.
Two years of gruelling treatment followed, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy, before a stem cell transplant. Fraser, then aged three, made a “miraculous recovery” from the surgery, before doctors declared the cancer in remission.
It was at this point, as Fraser started to recover and grow stronger, that Gaffney, 36, began to look for answers. She could not stop thinking about comments made by hospital staff at the time of her son’s diagnosis. “It keeps us up at night wondering how Fraser got his cancer,” a consultant had told her.
The botched disposal of millions of tonnes of contaminated waste after the closure of Europe’s largest steelworks in Corby, Northamptonshire, in 1979 had “always been a known thing”, said Gaffney. A 2009 civil case linked the council’s negligent clean-up of the site to a string of birth defects in local children in the 1980s and 1990s. It was later dramatised in the 2025 Netflix series Toxic Town.
Increasingly, Gaffney started to link the case to her own. “[Fraser’s cancer is] not genetic,” she said. “So what are the reasons? … It’s got to be down to the town. All these kids [with] cancer.
“Everybody in this town knows somebody who’s got a child [with] cancer. That’s not normal.”
Gaffney and Hinde started to connect with other families in Corby with similar stories to theirs – including some of Gaffney’s former classmates at Brooke Weston Academy – and the group began compiling detailed records on those affected. They now lead a campaign representing about 130 families with cases of childhood cancer dating back to 1988.
The group has been calling on the local authority to investigate any links between cases of childhood cancer in Corby and the decommissioning of the plant. At the end of this month, public health officials are set to publish their analysis of whether the town has had a disproportionate number of cases of childhood cancer for its population of 70,000.
“All we want is to try and protect future people so they do not have to endure the pain that we’ve been through,” said Gaffney.
The judgment in the 2009 civil claim accepted that, between 1983 and 1997, millions of tonnes of contaminated materials from the steel plant were transported “almost invariably” from the south of Corby to Deene Quarry in the north – with “large quantities” of toxic waste carried and dropped on public roads and “substantial quantities” of dust created by the reclamation.
However, it also cited reports from the Environment Agency in 1997 that found stockpiles of contaminated material that had been left at Deene Quarry were later removed in “large quantities”.
Gaffney believes waste was not only dumped at the Deene Quarry site but in other parts of the town. On Thursday, she welcomed a “major step forward” after North Northamptonshire council said it would test land that could be contaminated and investigate where toxic waste was dumped.
Gaffney said council staff admitted in the meeting that they did not know where the sites of contaminated waste could be. “They said: ‘We don’t know where these sites are. We have no documentation, we have nothing on it.’”
In a statement to the Guardian, North Northamptonshire council said the information they had seen from that time “says that the waste was disposed of in Deene Quarry, a former landfill site on the outskirts of Corby”, but added: “People have recently raised concerns on potential areas of contaminated land where they believe waste could also have been historically disposed of.
“We are thoroughly reviewing historic records to see if there is any information which suggests that disposal could have taken place elsewhere. This work will take time.”
Gaffney said the transparent nature of the meeting with the council shocked them. “Local authorities don’t normally hold their hands up and take this on but we’re really proud of them for doing so and saying they want to protect their people, like we do.”
The council’s announcement was also welcomed by Tonia Shalgosky, a pastoral lead at a primary school, whose nine-year-old daughter, Bella, was diagnosed with blood cancer in June this year.
“I had to shave my nine-year-old daughter’s head because her hair was falling out from the drugs she had to take to kill her cancer. So actually it’s in our interest, it’s in Bella’s interest [for the council] to share that information,” she said.
“There are so many people in the town that have been diagnosed with childhood cancer and I just feel it’s too much to ignore – it needs looking at it. This can’t be normal.”
Meg Lyons, 31, who works in sales and now lives in London, said families deserved “complete and utter truth and transparency” from the council.
Lyons’s 11-year-old sister, Eve, died on 24 June 2017 after being diagnosed with a rare bone cancer at the age of nine. Eve, who fundraised for Stand Up To Cancer, was “one of the most lovable, funniest and kindest” people, Lyons said.
Her mother remembers the impact of the closure of the steel plant on the town, Lyons said. “She said you couldn’t put your hand in front of your face because [of] the red ash.”
“This has been going on since I’ve probably been about three years old. It’s an excessive amount of time and it is negligence toward the people of Corby.”
Lyons’s cousin, Maggie Mahon, was one of several families involved in the 2009 claim against the then Corby council after her baby was born with clubfoot. Her husband, Derek, was one of the lorry drivers involved in removing waste from the steelworks. Their story was depicted in the Toxic Town series, and showed Maggie beating the dust from her husband’s jeans.
Gaffney said the campaign group has been approached by whistleblowers who were involved in the dumping of waste in the town.
One of those involved in the waste removal was Gaffney’s father. “He drove the lorry and dumped [the waste in a] pond,” she said. “At the time, everyone had lost their jobs so everyone took on any job that you could.”
“He wasn’t even licensed to drive a lorry. He said: ‘Me and the other guys weren’t licensed but they had us drive these big lorries through the town, just dumping it,’” she said.
The lawyer involved in the 2009 civil claim, Des Collins, is now representing Gaffney and other cancer families. He said only a statutory public inquiry would ensure the full truth is uncovered.
“Environmental testing, in order to rule out causation, is a highly complex process requiring stringent parameters and oversight to allow for reliance on its findings,” he said.
“No matter how genuine the council’s new approach, I am compelled to point out that, in my experience, only a statutory public inquiry has the capability both to reassure the public that the full truth has been uncovered and to set out the lessons to be learned.”
In a statement the leader of the council, Martin Griffiths, said the meeting with Gaffney and Hinde “marked the start of the parties’ commitment to work together in an open, positive and constructive way for the benefit of Corby residents”.
The council said it was committed to full transparency and would set up a working group, which will include Gaffney, to examine public health and contamination issues in Corby.
Gaffney is hopeful testing on land in Corby will begin once the group has been established. “Now, every family that comes through, I’m listening to their stories and it’s so hard. If anything, it just gives us that further fight,” she said.
“Each time it just chips away and then makes your fight stronger, because you’re thinking: ‘We’ve got to find answers for these children.’”