“…..I am concerned that the LA [local authority] appear to have been very confused about the correct legal approach to this site through the decision-making process.”1
Background
Havering Residents’ Association (HRA) aren’t leaders. Dithering and avoiding decision-making is a toxic legacy from their petty-minded Residents’ Associations days. Prior to this judgement they were tested by the Institutional Racism report and ULEZ. They failed on both occasions.
Havering’s Institutional Racism report was suppressed until the campaigning Romford Recorder emerged triumphant in court. Sadiq Khan’s ULEZ propositions were mocked in a campaign tinged with racism. No-one in the HRA leadership team understood that ULEZ was a public healthpolicy.
HRA never apologised for suppressing the Institutional Racism report or opposing ULEZ.2
Arnold’s Field, Launders Lane
Deputy-Leader Gillian Ford is HRA’s spokesperson. She said, “…the site belongs to them [the landowner] and it is their responsibility to make it safe – the ball is in their court and as they well know, we are ready to work with them to solve the problem.”3
Designating land as contaminated means the council controls the situation. Landowners of contaminated land are instructed to remediate their land.4 Gillian doesn’t understand that the council can turbo-charge action. The landowner wouldn’t be remediating the land voluntarily; they’d be under a legal obligation.
It is impossible to believe that anyone could look at a site which had 64 fires in a few months,5 and not think it was contaminated.
The council decided that the land was the lesser category ‘statutory nuisance’.6 This was refuted by the campaigners’ legal team, “The fires arising on this [sic] are clearly caused by the land being in a contaminated state, so it is not accepted that this is a nuisance under the EPA.7
The judge was forensically precise in her determination. “…. the LA [local authority] appear to have been very confused about the correct legal approach to this site….”8 This is a damning judicial rebuke. Continuous spontaneous combustion couldn’t be anything other than a consequence of toxic contamination.
The designation of Arnold’s Field as a contaminated site should be urgently expedited after years of procrastination.
Notes
2 See Havering’s Institutional Racism Report – Politics in Havering and also Anti-ULEZ Conservative councillor David Taylor was gracious in his mea culpa Havering’s ULEZ Data (davidtaylor.online)
3 Havering Council’s response to Arnolds Field judicial review | London Borough of Havering
4 Can I Be Prosecuted For The Contamination Of Land? – Stephensons Solicitors LLP
5 Arnolds Field: Illegal dump owners say clean-up plan blocked – BBC News
6 The council continued avoiding any responsibility. The judge noted, “….but also no action is being taken in respect of statutory nuisance.” Clear the Air in Havering, R (On the Application Of) v London Borough of Havering [2025] EWHC 1492 (Admin) (17 June 2025) para 31
7 loc.cit para 29
8 loc.cit para 105
Politics in Havering 