Residents within a kilometre of the AGC Chemicals Europe factory in Thornton-Cleveleys in the north of England, have found themselves at the centre of what is quickly becoming a national scandal.
In 2024, the UK Environment Agency and the local authority initiated an investigation into historic emissions of Pfoa – a carcinogenic “forever chemical” that international research has linked to kidney cancer – from the factory. After environmental testing, people have been advised to wash and peel homegrown food and to avoid eating locally produced eggs, and two allotment sites near the factory have been closed.
After my reporting on the factory and the looming threat of legal action, AGC Chemicals Europe this week announced plans to close down the plant, citing “significant financial and operational challenges”. With concerns now growing over who will pay for the clean-up, residents are left with serious questions about their health.
More on what comes next for the residents of this Lancashire village, after this week’s climate headlines.
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“Everything I had wanted was finally coming to fruition. A house, a change of job and getting married,” Liz Hurst told me as we sat looking out to sea on a hot evening in Blackpool, just south of Thornton-Cleveleys. But then, 15 years ago, Hurst was diagnosed with kidney cancer. “All of a sudden, everything was put on hold.” Now she wants to know if it has something to do with the factory on her doorstep.
Between the 1950s and 2012, the facility emitted 49 tonnes of the carcinogenic chemical Pfoa.
Pfoa – perfluorooctanoic acid – is a type of perfluorinated carboxylic acid, or Pfa, that international research has linked to kidney cancer. Pfas are commonly referred to as forever chemicals because they do not break down in the environment. The Thornton-Cleveleys factory, which AGC Chemicals Europe bought in 1999, used Pfoa to make Ptfe – polytetrafluoroethylene – another type of forever chemical used to make nonstick coatings on cookware. Pfoa was banned globally in 2020.
Despite the higher rates of kidney cancer in the vicinity of the factory, the government study found no evidence of a cancer cluster or of any environmental association, and it’s not possible to know whether one person’s individual cancer was caused by their exposure to Pfoa. World-leading experts, however, described the study’s findings as a “major cause of concern” and believe further investigation, including blood testing, is necessary.
This kind of story might sound familiar. Pfoa was thrown into the public consciousness thanks to the 2019 film Dark Waters, where Mark Ruffalo played Robert Bilott, a real-life corporate defence attorney in the US who turned against the chemical company DuPont after uncovering widespread contamination around its West Virginia factory. The case blew the lid off a toxic corporate secret, saw thousands of residents have their blood tested for Pfoa and resulted in a multimillion-dollar legal settlement.
Since then, Pfas litigation has accelerated across the US, with manufacturers agreeing to settlements running into the billions over contamination claims. Similar legal action has yet to emerge in Europe, although pressure is growing. Last week, the environmental law organisation ClientEarth lodged a complaint with the European Committee of Social Rights, alleging that Belgium has failed to adequately protect people from widespread Pfas pollution.
Meanwhile, the law firm Leigh Day has written to AGC Chemicals Europe to say it is investigating the viability of a claim on behalf of Sam Hammond, a Thornton-Cleveleys resident whose pet duck eggs are heavily contaminated with Pfoa. More than 90 residents have indicated they are keen to be involved in any potential legal action, with 50 accessing blood tests over the summer.
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As I reported this week, AGC Chemicals Europe said that, in relation to the closure, it took its “responsibilities to protect employees, the local community and the environment very seriously”. It added: “If a decision is taken to cease manufacture, AGC Chemicals Europe Ltd remains committed to ensuring compliance with all regulatory obligations, including maintaining the necessary staff for environmental permit compliance and any environmental monitoring that may be required.”
It is easy to think of Pfas as a problem confined to a handful of industrial communities, but the evidence increasingly suggests otherwise. Last year, I made In Our Blood: The Forever Chemicals Scandal, a documentary investigating the “alarming” levels of Pfas found in the blood of residents of Bentham, North Yorkshire, after I revealed the town has recorded the highest levels of Pfas pollution in the UK.
Today, more than 17,000 contaminated sites have been identified across the UK and Europe, with pollution detected everywhere from densely populated towns to some of the most remote regions.
The reality is, not just in the UK but across the world, many people could be living in Pfas hotspots without knowing it. As more communities begin to uncover the legacy of these persistent chemicals, the questions now being asked in the village of Thornton-Cleveleys are unlikely to remain theirs alone for long.
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