browseAftermath: Foot and Mouth in Tow Law
Dean Chapman (Photographer)
Text by Dean Chapman & Graeme Rigby (2003):
Aftermath was born out of a request by people in the vicinity of the Inkerman Burial Site, in Tow Law, for a documentation of the foot & mouth epidemic’s consequences.
The project set out to explore the social and environmental fallout from the burial site. In April 2001, 239 acres were bought from an opencast mining contractor, by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, with the intention of disposing of animal carcasses. The ‘common land’ was enclosed, public access restricted and any persons with the right to graze on the fell were excluded. Construction of the burial site commenced before permission was granted by the Environmental Agency. The Burial Site was constructed 400 metres from the nearest house, and 700 metres from a school. People from Tow Law and the surrounding former mining communities, as well as local farmers, protested vociferously. Parents were advised to keep their children indoors when fumes from the burial site became overpowering. The school sports day had to be abandoned because of children vomiting due to the stench.
In May 2001, 6 women from Tow Law were arrested at the gates to the burial site. The court case, held in November, centred on whether a MAFF official had informed residents of Tow Law that they could protest on the access road to the site. The magistrates dismissed the charges commenting, You've been a credit to this court and the people of Tow Law. Around 50,000 carcasses were buried at Inkerman, although plans existed for the disposal of up to a quarter of a million. The site, scheduled for maintenance until 2015, was not closed.