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Newbury

Newbury is an attractive, rural market town in the county of Berkshire in central southern England, roughly midway between London and Bristol. It is a thriving town with a population of around 50,000. Unemployment is very low with major employers being a mobile phone network and a pharmaceutical company. There is no heavy industry, with most jobs being office based.

Beginnings

In 1996 at the age of sixteen, Ann Capewell contracted acute myeloid leukaemia, a disease which is rare among teenage girls. Within three weeks, she was dead. Her parents, Richard and Elizabeth soon discovered that they were not alone and became aware of number of cases of leukaemia in their local area of south Newbury. They started asking questions and with the help of the Sunday Telegraph, the Newbury Weekly News and Granada Television's "World in Action" programme, even more known cases were discovered. These were mainly acute myeloid and lymphocytic leukaemias, but also lymphomas. When plotted on a map of the area, the vast majority of the cases were grouped in a cluster in south of the town, in a belt streching north-west from Greenham Common. Perhaps more striking was the lack of cases in the north of Newbury. According to statistical averages, there should have been more than the one case recorded.

Greenham Scare

At the same time as Richard and Elizabeth Capewell were uncovering cases of leukaemia in the town, a leak of 'secret' information was passed to Greenpeace and the Sunday Telegraph which published the story in July 1996. It stated that in 1958, a nuclear bomber, coming into land at Greenham Common airbase (on the southern edge of Newbury) got into difficulty and jettisoned its fuel tanks. These landed on, and destroyed another armed nuclear bomber on the ground.

In 1961, Government scientists at the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment a few miles east of Newbury discovered high levels of radioactive materials in the vicinity of Greenham Common, with a dumbbell shaped area of contamination at either end of the runway.

The scientists concluded that the cause of the contamination must have been the 1958 accident and fire at Greenham Common, with uranium and other radioactive materials released, and subsequently distributed around the air base by aircraft movements.

The 1961 report should have been made public in 1991, but the Ministry of Defence chose to reclassify the information and attempted to deny the public any information about incidents.

Radiation survey

Naturally such a report was not welcomed in the town. Newbury District Council and neighbouring Basingstoke and Deane Council commissioned a survey from Southampton University. The survey was carried out promptly and the results were made public in February 1997. Great care was made to ensure the results were accurate and not subject to any political manipulation.

The results showed that the background radiation around Newbury was normal and there was no evidence of a nuclear accident. However the survey did show up areas of higher background radiation around Aldermaston (15 miles east of Newbury) and Harwell (15 miles north of Newbury) nuclear establishments.

Berkshire Health Authority (BHA) report

In early 1997, BHA conducted a report on the "Incidence and mortality from leukaemia and other cancers in Newbury District Council area" which was published that May. This covered the period 1971 - 1994. The report confirmed the existence of a "cluster" of cases in south Newbury, with the incidence of leukaemia among the 0-24 age group in Ward 2, bein nearly 4 times the expected level.

The public presentation and Executive Summary played down the importance of the findings, but the report's results revealed that there were raised incidences of leukaemias and other cancers.

§ Number of times UK national average
Rates marked with an asterisk* are statistically significant

The Newbury leukaemia conundrum

An obvious cause for the leukaemia cases was still not available. Newbury District Council, continued its own investigations, but also arranged for a community brainstorming session to focus on the background knowledge of local residents, rather than to purely rely on specialists.

The brainstorming session was held in September 1997, and was designed to identify the differences between north and south Newbury which could be the cause. A large number of possibilities were raised and prioritised, however each needed further investigation, much of which was not necessarily scientific. At the meeting a number of local residents agreed to conduct that research and form the Newbury Leukaemia Study Group.

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Revised 12 March 98 NJB