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I must thank an Anon contributor for much of the recent information posted here. I am finding it a bit out of my comfort zone so corrections are welcome.

We can now identify a shocking 5 locations – raw sewage aeration tanks, activated sludge basins – right on the edge of the Hospital campus. The external expert advisors were not made aware of the full scale of all of this but even then were shocked that the chosen site was near any sewage works at all, noting their awareness of six new super-hospitals in England all built miles from and upwind of sewage treatment.

In Scotland, Falkirk’s new hospital was built further from, regardless of access complaints, and still upwind of the nearest sewage treatment.

This is clearly a Glasgow thing, under Scottish Labour suggesting dirty business in the process of given better sites to housebuilders.

AI has insisted that the Glasgow building can be made safe but this assessment is dominated by its reading of mainstream establishment accounts protecting Labour and revealingly illustrating a lack of connectivity with what it had just indicated in response to this question:

Is it possible to completely prevent leaks to the air and to ground affecting the hospital and its immunocompromised patients?

No. Complete, guaranteed prevention of all air and ground emissions from Shieldhall that could reach the hospital is not realistically achievable, though emissions can be reduced a great deal.

The circular settlement tanks, storm tanks, aeration stages and other open or turbulent processes generate odour and some bioaerosols. Covering tanks, extracting the air under negative pressure and treating it (biofilters, carbon filters, chemical scrubbers) is standard practice and already used on parts of Shieldhall (inlet works, sludge handling). The 2016 visit account noted plans to cover some basins. https://core.ac.uk/download/150593423.pdf

That does not give a sealed, zero-emission plant:

• The twelve ~50 m circular tanks and the large storm tanks are expensive and operationally awkward to cover fully because of rotating scrapers, access for maintenance, and sheer area.
• Storm events still force untreated or lightly treated flows into large open tanks; those are a known odour source that operators have historically struggled to contain. https://hospitalsinquiry.scot/sites/default/files/2025-05/Scottish%20Hospitals%20Inquiry%20-%20Hearing%20Commencing%2013%20May%202025%20-%20Bundle%2039%20-%20Impact%20and%20Infection%20Risk%20of%20QEUH%20and%20RHC%20site%20choice%20by%20Allan%20Bennett%20(External%20Version).pdf
• Covers, seals, fans and treatment media fail, get left open, or need to be removed for work. Residual odour at the hospital in summer is still reported. https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/scottish-news/23589380.glasgow-hospital-overwhelmed-sewage-stench-refurb/

Inquiry expert evidence on infection (as opposed to smell) has generally treated airborne transmission from Shieldhall to the wards as very unlikely: closest point ~200 m, wards ~300 m, high-level air intakes, rapid dilution and loss of viability, and northerly winds toward the hospital being uncommon. That is a risk judgement, not proof of zero aerosol. https://hospitalsinquiry.scot/sites/default/files/2025-05/Scottish%20Hospitals%20Inquiry%20-%20Hearing%20Commencing%2013%20May%202025%20-%20Bundle%2039%20-%20Impact%20and%20Infection%20Risk%20of%20QEUH%20and%20RHC%20site%20choice%20by%20Allan%20Bennett%20(External%20Version).pdf

The hospital’s sealed mechanical ventilation was chosen partly because of the works next door. Extra carbon filtration on intakes would cut odour further; it still would not make outdoor air at the site sterile.

GroundLined tanks, sealed pipework and regulated drainage greatly limit leakage into soil and groundwater. They do not make leakage impossible for the life of a large, ageing works (settlement, joints, overflows, historic contamination on an old industrial riverside site).

What “complete” would actually require

Eliminating the proximity risk entirely would mean one of:

• relocating or fully enclosing the treatment works (covering every open process, treating all extracted air to a high standard, and maintaining that forever), or
• not siting highly immunocompromised patients in a building whose outdoor air and grounds sit next to a major sewage works.

Neither has been done. Engineering can make leaks small and infrequent; it cannot honestly promise they never happen and never reach the hospital. Odour remains the persistent, observable issue; a theoretical residual aerosol risk is what the inquiry evidence has treated as low rather than zero.

Help Talking-up Scotland keep going

Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going

Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421