Amber Online

Hebburn Residents' Action Group

says hundreds of people have been condemned to a life of almost constant illness by breathing in coal dust and toxic emissions from National Smokeless Fuels cokeworks at Monkton. They point to the very high use of oxygen and inhalers among elderly people and say that health improved dramatically when the coke ovens were closed down during the 1984 Miners' Strike. British Coal has refused to comment on a health inquiry until its findings are published later this year. But privately it claims £30 million would have to be spent to end pollution. The firm's other option would be to close the plant with the loss of about 200 jobs. British Steel operates a site twice the size of Monkton at Redcar on the Cleveland coast. Its workers are paid bonuses to stay inside pollution targets laid down by the the government's Industrial Clean Air Inspectorate. Government Alkali Inspectors from Darlington, whose job it is to monitor pollution from Monkton, have refused to comment on the pollution levels at Hebburn.