Thanks to reader Joe Murray for alerting us to this.
As the media operating in Scotland desperately struggle to blame the SNP for a problem in the QEUH water supply and drainage, signed off by a Labour dominated health board in a Labour-led authority, in 2015, two years before the SNP victory, another problem for them emerges.
Surely, they’d seen Erin Brockovich (2 000) and would have known about the deadly chromium hexavalent, if they did some reading?
In 2012, Glasgow City Council granted planning permission for the South Clyde Energy Centre (an energy-from-waste/incinerator facility) at Bogmoor Road, North Cardonald (near Hillington), which is close to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) in Govan.
Close, yes, but more important, is it upwind?
You bet it is:
Most days, the wind will blow directly from the Bogmoor Road’s site’s chimney over the QEUH site.
Note that Scotland has had a moratorium (SNP/Greens) on new incineration capacity since 2022, but it does not apply to plants that already had planning permission (or were under construction).
Is the incinerator damaging to health?
A UK Government ‘systematic review’ of epidemiological evidence (post-Waste Incineration Directive) found no clear evidence of associations with cancers, adverse birth outcomes, or other morbidity. Any potential effects on people living nearby are likely to be very small it said.
However, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence, and:
Hospitals treating immunocompromised patients are inherently more vulnerable to any airborne contaminants. Modelling accounts for this, but residual uncertainty remains for ultra-low-level or poorly characterised emissions (e.g., certain ultrafine particles or trace organics).
Sources?
Numerous peer-reviewed papers on hospital-acquired infections and air quality that note elevated risk for immunocompromised groups – Here are several concrete examples of peer-reviewed papers that discuss elevated risk of airborne/hospital-acquired infections for immunocompromised patients (with direct links where available):
- Microbial Air Quality in Healthcare Facilities (2021)
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8296088/
Explicitly states that airborne microorganisms are generally harmless to healthy people but pathogenic/opportunistic agents can cause infections in immunosuppressed patients, making indoor air quality critical in hospitals. - Analysis of Mould Exposure of Immunosuppressed Patients at a German University Hospital (2023)
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10672964/
Focuses on mould (Aspergillus etc.) exposure risks specifically for immunosuppressed patients and links indoor air contamination to potential nosocomial infections. - Improving ventilation hygiene in wards for immunocompromised patients (2025)
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12276443/
Discusses the particular vulnerability of haematology/immunocompromised patients to airborne fungal spores (e.g., Aspergillus) from ventilation systems and the risks of inadequate air quality. - Seasonal Characterization of the Aerobiome in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Rooms: Potential Risk for Immunosuppressed Patients (2024)
https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms12112352
Highlights the elevated infection risk for immunocompromised HSC transplant patients from airborne microorganisms and the need for strict air quality controls (HEPA filtration, etc.). - CDC Guidelines – Environmental Infection Control in Health-Care Facilities (Air section)
https://www.cdc.gov/infection-control/hcp/environmental-control/air.html
Official guidance listing hematopoietic stem-cell transplant patients, chemotherapy patients, organ-transplant recipients, and other immunocompromised groups as those at greatest risk from airborne pathogens.
These are representative examples from the literature; many more exist in infection-control and environmental-health journals.
Finally, the QEUH is 60m high (14 storeys). The incinerator chimney is only 80m high.
Hot exhaust gases rise further above the stack (plume rise due to buoyancy and momentum). At the short distance involved (~400–800 m), the plume centreline is often still elevated. A 60 m-high building can therefore sample air closer to (or within) the denser part of the plume than a ground-level receptor would, especially under stable atmospheric conditions or light winds.
Concentrations are highest near the plume centreline and decrease both above and below it. Taller structures can therefore experience higher concentrations than lower buildings or street level in some meteorological scenarios.
Shoddy work by the Planning Committee or pressure from a Labour donor?
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Labour Councillors – as in where many Labour Councillors side with and so vote with Tories in some Scottish Councils against the SNP, so then those kind of Labour Councillors ?
Talking of Labour – “Prime Minister Andy Burnham recently commented on a suspected terror plot at RAF Fairford, stating that the government assesses the incident was “highly likely to have been coordinated in Iran” and “almost certainly directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard“.
Meanwhile in other news relating to this matter the BBC reported that:
” Five men were arrested in the early hours of Sunday morning after police were alerted to “three suspicious vehicles” in Whelford, a village which lies directly east of the base (RAF base). Of the Five men , all UK nationals aged between 23 and 25, four of them live in Westminster and one in Camden, and searches of their homes are now complete. The men were released on bail in what police described as an “investigative decision” that was “grounded in experience and strategy”. Police said a quantity of petrol but no explosive devices were found during searches of the vans”.
So the UK government are accusing these five men of “an attempted suspected Terrorist plot orchestrated by Iran” against the UK State, where according to the UK PM this was an incident that was ” almost certainly directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard“, so then the best option in this scenario for the Police is for them to then give these arrested men “bail” to then do what ?
Disappear and so then plan another “terrorist plot” ?
I mean what is the real story here that sees the Police give these arrested men bail but where a UK PM states it is “likely” that these men were part of a “terror plot” that was “co-ordinated by Iran” – so was this intel , via the PM, received from MI5 or via the Counter Terrorism Police ?
Or is this yet more Project Fear to try to get citizens within the UK State to just accept, without revolt, that there apparently needs to be far more money for defence – though if Iran were indeed in any way involved in this incident at RAF Fairhead , then it was not random but likely because the “British Labour UK government allowed the U.S. military to use RAF Fairford for what it called ‘defensive’ strikes on Iranian missiles” (yet simultaneously somehow also declare that “The UK is and was not involved in this US/Israel war against Iran”).
Is this Scotland’s future ? Where we , as part of the UK State, are then dragged into the UK State constantly interfering in other countries , either directly or indirectly, on behalf of some other countries (like say the US and Israel) who do not give a S*** about the UK State , other than using them and exploiting them as long as they, as the UK State, agree to be their useful International Idiots.
Seems so – yet somehow we , who support independence- are declared as being the divisive and aggressive ones within their UK State !
Liz S
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It really does seem that the Labour English council in Glasgow deliberately built the hospital next to a chem/sewage site, which no one anywhere in their right mind would do unless they didn’t care and/or were actively wanting to poison people. Those responsible should be arrested, and court proceedings should follow. If found guilty they should be locked up for a very long time.
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JLL brokered Cowglen deal 2015. Don’t know full details…any helpers? JLL currently brokering presale phase of Yorkhill/RHSC/QMH site. Maybe that sewage and waste burning smell around the hospital wasn’t just shite and ash
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