Council documents suggest Corby’s toxic quarry site is leaking
Investigations by public bodies suggest that Deene Quarry, a former steelworks chemical dumping ground, and later home to a raceway, is leaking historic contamination
By Sarah Ward
The landfill site where vast amounts of Corby’s toxic waste have been buried, may be leaking, uncovered documents suggest.
For several decades former iron ore site Deene Quarry site was the dumping ground for by-product from Corby’s steel industry, with millions of gallons of toxic slurry, slag and industrial chemicals discarded at the former quarry site, creating huge toxic lagoons often littered with empty chemical drums.
The site was cleaned up in the 1980s and 1990s, after the former Corby District Council decided to try and turn around the fortunes of the town after steelmaking stopped, and transform the huge area (now known as Willowbrook North) into a new industrial complex.
But the clean up operation, which was the biggest in Europe and funded by millions of UK government and European funding was mismanaged, with a landmark legal case about birth defects in 2009 finding that there was a ‘dig and dump’ policy, that safety regulations were not followed and toxic pollutants that were being transported on open trucks escaped into the atmosphere and were ingested by the pregnant mothers.
Now, thirty years after Deene Quarry was capped off, there are fears it is leaking. The landfill site is the responsibility of the local authority (now North Northamptonshire Council) and is regulated by the Environment Agency (EA). Over the past few years there have been suspicions the site has been leaking onto nearby Gretton Brook Road and into the brook that runs alongside it (which gives the road its name) with reports of the brook turning different colours on occasions.
Documents from a meeting convened by Gretton Parish Council in January last year, which have been unearthed by a campaigner, show the concerns about the landfills at Deene Quarry are well founded. In 2001 Rockingham Motor Speedway was built on the North East quarter of the site. The speedway was not a success and in 2021 the site was acquired by the Constellation Automotive Group for £80m. The company has been contacted for comment.
The council report says:
“There are still historic open landfills around the speedway (referred to as Deene quarry). Water from the open landfill underneath Rockingham Speedway is pooling by the side of Gretton Brook Road. The installations Team at the Environment Agency is currently in discussions with the technical groundwater team at NNC and NNC (responsible for the open landfill site). Historically Anglian Water went to assess the sites at Rockingham Speedway, attenuation ponds were assessed and cleared. This suggests that groundwater levels have risen and are pushing up historic contamination in the ground and it is leaking onto the road. The Environment Agency is currently discussing the permits granted to NNC at this site.”
Water testing organised by Corby MP Lee Barron’s office in conjunction with environmental charity Earthwatch found heavy metals in the water, including cadmium, a highly toxic metal which can cross the placenta and cause birth defects. There were cadmium hotspots around the speedway site.
NN Journal contacted the Environment Agency about the leak concerns and it said:
“Pollution in Gretton Brook comes from many sources. We recognise the concerns raised and understand how important it is for residents to feel confident in the quality of their local environment.
“We are working with North Northants Council to assess any potential link between activities regulated under their environment permit at Deene Quarry and possible contamination.
“This work is ongoing, and we remain committed to mitigating any potential risk.”
The agency says it has offered to join a working group with the local authority and Lee Barron MP to ‘examine the range of issues’. It said it is investigating a pollution report on Gretton Brook, with samples from an onsite assessment going for further testing.
The local campaigner
Former Corby town and Gretton Parish councillor Rob Newby has been concerned about the situation for a number of years. He has constantly monitored the Gretton Brook at the location where the road from Gretton village joins with the Gretton Brook Road. He has sent countless emails and made reports to Anglian Water, Tata Steel (which owns land nearby) the EA, the council and the town council to try and get answers.
The road has been closed on a number of occasions due to flooding issues.
He said:
“Nobody has taken charge of the situation which remains unresolved despite fruitless efforts to pay lip service to the ongoing problem.”
At a parish council meeting last Monday he said the water pooling onto the side of the road was foul smelling.
He said:
“This [issue] is going on and on. Between the council and the environment agency it is going round in circles. Someone has to pick this up as it is becoming a joke.”
The original legal firm is back on the case
Since Corby’s toxic waste legacy was brought to the fore once again with the airing of Netflix drama Toxic Town, there have been concerns that the waste is still causing issues today. Families have concerns about recent birth defects, childhood and adult cancers and other rare illnesses. The local authority’s director of public health commissioned a report, which found childhood cancer rates were no higher in Corby. However, as with the original group of claimants, the health report is being questioned.
There are also now wider concerns about where all the toxic waste went to. It was supposed to be buried in Deene Quarry, but documents from the original court case, show that the contractor Noone and McGowan who had the 1996 contract to clean up the Soothills area (now the Corby Tesco site at St James) took the waste to other parts of Corby (and used in footings of new developments) and it also went to the Kettering Leisure Park, where the Odeon cinema and a number of restaurants were built.
Collins solicitors, who led the landmark case, are involved once more and last week, standing looking at the Deene Quarry, solicitor Dani Holliday said the issue of the waste containment site has never been looked at properly.
She said the court case established that there was ‘undeniable incompetence’ by some officers of the former Corby Borough Council who were leading the reclamation project. She said:
“No-one ever went back and had a look and said ‘has this been done properly?’ It was just covered over and something heavy and vibrating [the speedway] was placed on it. You could not make it up really. It is so absurd.”
Des Collins says the way forward is a public enquiry. He said the local authority is currently acting as the previous one did and is not being transparent, but it could call on the government to act.
He said:
“What the council can do is go to Wes Streeting [health secretary] and say ‘this has got out of hand and you must now direct that there is a public enquiry.”
Tracey Taylor, who is leading a campaign for a public enquiry and was one of the mother’s depicted in the Toxic Town drama unearthed the parish council minutes, which suggest that contamination is leaking, after a trawl online. Her daughter Shelby died in 1996 less than a week after she was born with only two chambers in her heart. Tracey, like the father of another child who was born with deformities, worked at the Euromax Logistics site - which is less than a 100 metres away from Deene Quarry.
She said:
“They say there is yearly testing done of this site. But where are the reports? If the testing has been done, why are they not publicly available?
The MP
Corby’s MP Lee Barron has said he will help the families get answers.
He said:
“My priority has always been to support the families who deserve answers to their questions.
“This includes setting up the meeting in January 2025 with the Environment Agency and North Northamptonshire Council and representatives from Gretton Parish Council. It was an opportunity to bring together authorities who manage and monitor the site.“At this meeting reassurances were given by the Environment Agency, but many people will be aware that there have been ongoing concerns.
“This is why I welcomed the opportunity to support the work of Earthwatch, the internationally recognised charity, to run the country’s largest community water testing project. The results of this testing carried out in late November, 2025, highlighted that there were indicators that this was still an area of interest. This information was shared with North Northamptonshire Council and the Environment Agency.
“After receiving further concerns from constituents, a week ago I asked for an update from the Environment Agency and I am waiting for an update. Wes Streeting is aware of the families’ concerns and has been kept up to date.”
Council response
We put a series of question to North Northamptonshire Council last Thursday about the testing of the historic landfill site and whether the authority understood it to be leaking. The authority says answers will be given in full later this week and gave this holding statement:
“North Northamptonshire Council recognises the understandable strength of feeling amongst the residents of Corby in relation to the historic and emotive issue of contaminated land and takes environmental concerns extremely seriously.”
NNJ deserves more praise for keeping this extremely important issue in the public eye. When will the body that should be looking after the town's citizens actually do something positive? No one believes North Northants Council doesn't know a lot more than they are admitting - or that they intend to do anything about it. Look at how public bodies and central government delay real investigations of matters like this - tainted blood, Sellafield, Hillsborogh, the Post Office, for instance. Corby is facing years and years of nothing happening I'm afraid. Public inquiries have become part of the blueprint for official delay.