Milford Haven | Archive | 2006 | March | 23
From the archive, first published Thursday 23rd Mar 2006.
RESIDENTS hit by the large kerosene spill at Hazelbeach last year have reacted with surprise to claims that the way the incident was handled has been "recognised nationally as good practice."
The comments - made by Pembrokeshire County Council director of social services Jon Skone - do not seem to tally with the experiences of those affected by the spill.
Llandstadwell Community Council chair Sarah Rowland said: "We don't agree with that. The major problem that we found was that no-one was communicating.
"We didn't get any feedback the from the different agencies involved and the main thing was the lack of a single point of contact or control figure all the agencies. It was a mish-mash and that's the general feeling."
Former chair Glyn Tidmarsh said he also had concerns about the way the various agencies communicated.
He said: "I felt that there was no one person or overall body in charge, or no single event diary being recorded.
"There was no one person that any individual could go to, either with a problem or an issue.
"If you had a situation with Welsh Water which also involved a health issue you couldn't speak directly to the people involved.
"There should be an emergency plan and page one should say this person is in charge and these are the telephone numbers of the various people involved."
Cllr Tidmarsh said that there was absolutely no criticism of the clean-up operation and individually the bodies worked very hard to resolve the problem.
The response to the spill is now the subject of an independent review. Mr Skone's comments had been made at the November meeting of Pembrokeshire Local Health Board.
They were then picked up by Ken Edwards, the county councillor who represents Llanstadwell.
He told the Merc: "I wanted it noted that the statement by the director of social services could be interpreted as being a little premature given the review by an independent examiner, Dr Michael Thomas, to scrutinise the responses of all the agencies involved.
"We had five public meetings in 10 weeks and in my opinion Llanstadwell Community Council did very well to keep pressure on the companies and agencies to communicate better."
Back in September 2005 the Mercury reported how angry villagers demanded answers from the Environment Agency, county council, LHB and others.
There was stinging criticism that their questions about the 600 tonne spill - including whether the water supply was safe to drink - were not answered quickly enough.
At the time Jed Davies, of the Environment Agency, acknowledged that consideration should have been given to setting up a dedicated telephone help-line.
Asked what Mr Skone had based his comments on, a county council spokesman said: "Jon Skone was only reporting what had been said at a meeting of the Health Advisory Group in Cardiff in late September and chaired by Dr Sandra Payne of the National Public Health Service for Wales."
© Newsquest Media Group 2008