Walley’s Quarry: Response of the Environment Agency

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend very much for bringing this really important matter to the House. Although the quarry lies within his constituency, the effects are very much felt in Stoke-on-Trent Central, particularly where we border with Newcastle-under-Lyme, in Basford, Hartshill, Penkhull and Trent Vale.

In addition to supporting all my hon. Friend’s comments, I would like to make the Minister aware of a concern raised by the Royal Stoke University Hospital, based in my constituency and only two and a half miles from the quarry, about hydrogen sulphide emanating from the quarry. It has caused a poisonous toxic gas with an eggy smell. I know that my hon. Friend agrees that that is deeply concerning. My constituents and I join him in calling on the Minister to take immediate action, both to mitigate the worrying environmental and public health impacts and to find a lasting solution to the issue.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I did not interrupt the hon. Lady because we are trying to get back to some kind of normality, but I have to make the point that that was a very long intervention—a very interesting one, of course.