As you know I’ve been liaising with the statutory bodies involved in the Birling Gap noxious haze for weeks now. Trying to find out from them the cause of the gas, and what it actually was.—Stephen Lloyd MP for Eastbourne, 21 September 2017
And to be frank it’s been a bit of a challenge going backwards and forwards with them. Swimming through treacle is a metaphor that captures it neatly!
Then only yesterday I hear from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency that they will not be able to identity the source, ‘as they don’t know what it is’.
This after weeks of telling me they were narrowing it down to one of the 150 or so vessels in the area at the time……
And as all the other agencies appear to have basically concluded that ‘we do not know what the gas was as firstly we did not have the right equipment to take a sample, and secondly its transient nature meant there was no time to collect a sample’ The whole outcome has turned out to be very disappointing.
And to be blunt, this is simply not good enough!
Imagine the consequences if the haze had been, say, only 20% more toxic? Then members of the public affected by the gas either at Birling Gap or across Eastbourne (of which many were) could have suffered a much more severe reaction. I’ll leave the possible consequences to your imagination but it certainly wouldn’t have been pretty.
Consequently, I will be insisting the relevant bodies come back to me and the public with a clear explanation as to (a) why a sample was not taken at the time and (b) a coherent plan which demonstrates that they will be able to successfully collect samples in future.
You, me, all of us deserve nothing less..
