Case Studies

• Nearly a year on from the Summer 2007 floods, Carol Laws is still feeling the flood strain
  In June 2007, Carol from Hull was one of tens of thousands forced out of their home and into temporary accommodation due to severe flooding. This case study includes quotes from an interview conducted from outside her caravan in March 2008.
• A beautiful, idyllic Berkshire village has been bedevilled by a planning bugbear
  The site of the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research at Hurley, which has been vacant since 1992, has been razed to make way for a new 82,500 sq ft building sitting in the heart of the 15 acre site. The location is close to the Hurley Conversation Area and is within an area designated as Special Landscape Importance, Green Belt and is within a 500 metre ancient woodland buffer.
• A long battle ahead as 91 homes face possible blight from a dirty industrial past.
  Seaton Carew, Teesside
  Angry homeowners are demanding compensation after experts discovered a wide area of residential land has been poisoned with lead, arsenic and zinc. Ninety-one homes on an estate in Seaton Carew, Hartlepool, are affected and owners fear house prices will plummet. Council chiefs are now taking legal action against the former landowners and the company which built the properties in the 1970s, but warned that it could take several years for the problem to be resolved for those affected.