SOIL under a UK factory is “undoubtedly” infected with mad cow disease, experts have warned.
Britons should avoid the area around Thruxted Mill altogether, according to research from the University of Kent.
The factory was one of five UK sites used to dispose of the remains of infected cattle in the 1990s and 2000s.
Now Professor Alan Colchester, a neurologist and disease expert, has warned that any work to demolish the factory and rebuild the area will put contractors and owners at risk.
He wrote: “The disturbance of land and the demolition of materials pose a risk of transmission, as the dust can suspend infectious particles and generate infectious waste.
Construction plans for 20 houses have been approved
Construction of houses in the area “should normally be prohibited, particularly where gardens and surrounding land would be accessible for residents to relax in, especially children playing”, it added.
Developers have previously submitted plans to build 20 homes on the site, 11km from Canterbury.
They pledged to decontaminate the area in 2017 at an estimated cost of £1.75million and said soil surveys showed evidence of asbestos, metals, petroleum oils and greases.
No microbiological species, such as anthrax or salmonella, were found, they added.
Ashford Borough Council acknowledged the old mill “has the most terrible legacy” but gave the go-ahead anyway.
Camilla Swire, who lives nearby, led the campaign against the plans. His daughter was co-author of the recent study.
Due to the backlash, the council’s decision to allow the development was reversed.
The decision was “due to a lack of expert evidence”.
But a year later, the app was taken down.
The factory is always a risk
Professor Colchester believes the factory, which processed animal carcasses into products that include fat, is still unsafe today.
He said the molecules that cause mad cow disease, otherwise known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), are “incredibly difficult” to destroy.
“The site is a biohazard,” he said. “Infected agents of mad cow disease are incredibly resistant to normal decay and destruction and there will undoubtedly be long term contamination of the soil.
“The thing is, there are different ways to get in touch with him. »
In the 1990s until the early 2000s, lorries full of animal remains were transported to the site between Chartham and Godmersham, where machines separated the animal fat and protein residue from the bones.
“Frequent liquid spills”
Piles of carcasses were regularly dumped in the yard and an acrid smell wafted through the countryside.
It was not uncommon for the surrounding roads to be littered with pieces of dead cattle.
In 2008, a lost truck trying to find its way to the factory spilled tongues and football-sized pieces of bladder on Beech Avenue in Chartham.
At the time, a villager, Peter Hancox, said the road “frequently had liquid spills”.
“But it was a piece of guts too many. The smell was horrible,” he added.
Symptoms of the disease transmitted to humans – called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) – include memory loss, personality changes, abnormal jerky movements and loss of brain function and mobility.
“Infected remains were left lying around”
In the study, which was published in the academic journal Land Use Policy, Professor Colchester said: “The worst-case scenario is that you can transmit disease to animals or humans from environmental materials that have themselves been infected in the past.
“And with CJD, we’re talking about a very long incubation period – months to years. »
In 1998 the professor, then a consultant neurologist at Guy’s Hospital in London, said: ‘Infected remains have been left lying around and contaminated material is probably still to be found in large quantities in the ground. »
Villagers are wary of new development demands.
And Professor Colchester’s article “Out of Sight, Out of Mind? BSE 30 years later” warns against any development.
“Nothing should be done to encourage human activity around Thruxted Mill or surrounding forests,” he wrote.
“If you have places in an urban environment that are contaminated, we may have to tar it completely. »
First infections in the 1980s
Originally considered a sawmill in the 1960s, Thruxted was converted into a rendering plant by Canterbury Mills Ltd.
The company dissolved in 2010, two years after the factory closed, according to Companies House.
A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “To prevent the risk of disease spreading from residues in soil, groundwater or air pollution, burying or burning dead animals, including all farm animals, in the open has been banned since 2003.
“Before this, advice on the safe and legal disposal of fallen animals was readily available. Biohazard risks are addressed through local authority planning processes if historic burial sites are redeveloped. »
Researchers say the first probable BSE infections in cows in Britain occurred in the 1970s, with two specific cases of BSE first identified in 1986.
From 1986 to 2001, as the threat of the human variant grew, the epidemic affected an estimated 180,000 cattle and devastated farming communities.
What is mad cow disease?
Mad cow disease – also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) – ravaged UK cattle herds in the 1990s when millions of cattle were culled.
The deadly disease has spread to humans from infected beef, causing widespread panic.
It is a fatal degenerative brain disease in cattle, similar to scrapie in sheep.
It attacks the central nervous system – the brain and spinal cord – causing infected animals to lose muscle control.
They become unsteady on their feet and also become aggressive, nervous or frantic – hence the name ‘mad cow disease’.
The exact cause is unknown, but it is thought to be spread by prions, abnormally folded proteins that accumulate in the brain and kill nerve cells.
There was a major outbreak in the UK from the late 1980s.
Ministers have banned the practice of feeding cattle bone meal from other cows – the likely cause of the outbreak.
But the epidemic continued and peaked in the early 1990s, when around 1,000 new cases per week were recorded.
Officially, around 180,000 cows have been infected – but almost half a million more cows with the disease are likely to have ended up on plates.
Some 4.4 million cattle were slaughtered during a national eradication program in the 1990s.
The crisis led to a ban on British beef sales in the EU from 1996 to 2006.
France has also recorded more than 300,000 cases of BSE, although its beef has never been banned.
Much smaller outbreaks have occurred in Germany, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Canada, the United States and Japan.
Recently, there have been isolated outbreaks in the UK, including a case in Wales in 2015.
