Inside UK’s ‘biohazard’ woodland as expert warns abandoned factory is ‘undoubtedly’ infected with deadly disease | The Sun

WOODS surrounding an abandoned factory are “undoubtedly” infected with a deadly disease, experts have warned.

Brits should completely avoid the area surrounding Thruxted Mill, according to a University of Kent study.

The mill was one of five UK sites used to dispose of the remains of infected cattle during the 1990s and noughties.

Some 178 people died after contracting the human version of the disease, known as Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD).

Now Professor Alan Colchester, a neurologist and expert on the illness, has warned that any work to demolish the mill and rebuild the area would put contractors and homeowners at risk.

He wrote: "Disturbing land and demolishing material brings with it transmission risk, as dust may suspend infectious particles and generate infectious waste."

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PLANS TO BUILD HOMES APPROVED

Building homes on the area "should normally be prohibited, particularly where gardens and surrounding land would be accessed by residents for relaxation, especially by children playing," he added.

Developers previously submitted plans to build 20 homes on the site, which is seven miles outside Canterbury.

They pledged to decontaminate the area in 2017 at an estimated cost of £1.75 million and said soil studies showed evidence of asbestos, metals, petroleum oils and fats.

No microbiological species, such as anthrax or salmonella, were found, they added.

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Ashford Borough Council recognised the old mill "had the most dreadful legacy" but still gave the green light.

Camilla Swire, who lives nearby, spearheaded the campaign against the plans. Her daughter was co-author of the recent study.

Because of the backlash the council's decision to allow development was overruled.

The decision was "due to a lack of expert evidence".

But a year later the application was pulled.

FACTORY IS STILL A RISK

Professor Colchester believes the factory, which processed animal carcasses into products including grease,is still hazardous today.

He said the molecules that cause Mad Cow Disease, otherwise known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), are "incredibly hard" to destroy.

"The site is a biohazard," he said. "The infected agents for Mad Cow Disease are incredibly resistant to normal decay and destruction and there will undoubtedly be some long-term contamination in the soil.

"The point is that there are various ways you could come into contact with it."

In the 1990s until the early 2000s, truckloads of animal remains were ferried to the site between Chartham and Godmersham, where machines separated animal fats and protein residue from the bone.

'FREQUENT FLUID SPILLS'

There were reports of piles of carcasses regularly being dumped in the yard area and a pungent smell hung over the countryside.

It was not uncommon for the surrounding roads to become littered with chunks of dead cattle.

In 2008, a lost lorry trying to find its way to the mill spilled tongues and lumps of a bladder the size of a football on Beech Avenue in Chartham.

At the time one villager, Peter Hancox, said the route "frequently had fluid spillages".

"But this was one lump of guts too far. The smell was horrible," he added.

The symptoms of the disease passed on to humans – called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) – include memory loss, personality changes, abnormal jerking movements and a loss of brain function and mobility.

'INFECTED REMAINS LEFT AROUND'

In the study, which was published in the academic journal Land Use Policy, Professor Colchester said: "The worst-case scenario is that you could transmit the illness to animals or humans from environmental materials that have themselves been infected in the past.

"And with CJD, we’re talking about a seriously long incubation period – from a few months to several years."

In 1998 the professor, then a consultant neurologist at Guy’s Hospital, London, said: "Infected remains were left lying around and contaminated material is probably still lying in large quantities in the soil."

Villagers are wary of further planning applications.

And Professor Colchester’s paper 'Out of sight, out of mind? BSE 30 years on' warns against any developments.

"Nothing should be done to encourage human activity around Thruxted Mill or the surrounding woodlands," he wrote.

"If you have places in an urban environment that have contamination, then there might be a case that we should tarmac it over completely."

FIRST INFECTIONS IN THE 1980S

Thought to have originally been developed as a saw mill in the 1960s, Thruxted was transformed into the animal-rendering plant by Canterbury Mills Ltd.

The firm was dissolved in 2010, two years after the closure of the factory, according to Companies House.

A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "To prevent risks of spreading disease from residues in the soil, groundwater or air pollution, the burial or burning of fallen stock, including all farmed animals, in the open has been banned since 2003.

"Before that, guidance on the safe and legal disposal of fallen stock was made readily available. The risk of biohazards are addressed through local authority planning processes if historic burial sites are redeveloped."

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Researchers say the first probable infections of BSE in cows in Britain occurred during the 1970s with two definite cases of BSE first being identified in 1986.

From 1986 through to 2001, as the threat of the human variant grew, the outbreak affected about 180,000 cattle and devastated farming communities.

What is Mad Cow Disease?

MAD cow disease – also known as Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) – ravaged Britain’s cattle herds in the 1990s when millions of livestock were slaughtered.

The killer disease spread to humans from infected beef, sparking 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 frenzied – leading to the name "mad cow disease".

The exact cause is unknown but it is believed to be spread by prions, abnormally folded proteins which accumulate in the brain and kill nerve cells.

There was a major outbreak in the UK beginning in the late 1980s.

Ministers banned the practice of feeding cattle with bonemeal 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 a week were being recorded.

Officially around 180,000 cows were infected – but almost half a million more cows with the disease are likely to have ended up on dinner plates.

Some 4.4 million cattle were slaughtered during a nationwide eradication programme in the 90s.

Some 178 people died in the UK after contracting the human version of the disease, known as Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD).

The crisis led to a ban on British beef sales in the EU from 1996 to 2006.

France also had more than 300,000 cases of BSE, though its beef was never banned.

Much smaller outbreaks occurred in Germany, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Canada, the USA and Japan.

Recently there have been isolated outbreaks in the UK, including one case in Wales in 2015.

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