The English town where parents fear toxic waste is giving children cancer

Ever since her son Fraser was diagnosed with a rare type of leukaemia at 17 months old, Alison Gaffney has been searching for answers.

Gaffney is among 150 families who say they have been affected by childhood cancer cases in the East Midlands town of Corby, the centre of the UK’s most high profile toxic waste scandal – and now fear their own connection to the disaster.

These families have tracked cases dating back to the late 1980s in the small town and believe the number is disproportionate for Corby’s population of around 62,000.

“[Fraser’s] consultant said to me, ‘it keeps me up at night, wondering how Fraser got this cancer,’” Gaffney told The i Paper. “The consultant, nurses and other staff said to us they were all puzzled why there are so many children from Corby getting cancer.”

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In 1979, Corby’s steelworks was shuttered and thousands of workers became jobless. Toxic waste from the site was moved along public roads in uncovered lorries, with witnesses recalling dust billowing from the trucks and coating an open-air fruit and vegetable market, cars and prams. Locals said the air tasted metallic.

Then, in the late 1980s and 1990s, babies were born with missing fingers and toes and club feet, among other abnormalities. Others were stillborn.

A landmark 2009 High Court ruling established a link between atmospheric toxic waste and a surge of birth defects as mothers-to-be were exposed to contaminated dust, and found Corby’s council to be “extensively negligent”. This fight was portrayed in the 2025 hit Netflix drama, Toxic Town.

But years after the ruling, a new battle between parents and the council is playing out.

Fraser’s parents were told he was close to death seven times during his treatment for leukaemia, which had a “rare gene mutation”. He developed tumours on his face, brain and spine, while complications left him needing to be fed by a tube.

But in what became known in the ward as the “Fraser effect”, he would continually surprise doctors with his ability to fight his cancer. When he turned three, doctors declared the cancer in remission. Fraser is now nine, and a big brother.

“He is the happiest, cheekiest boy,” Gaffney said. But the intensive treatment has taken a toll – once a bright boy, he lives with brain development and memory problems.

“We can have weeks where there would be no issue, but then he can be eating, put his fork down, and forgets that he’s in the middle of eating,” Gaffney said.

She began to question whether the steelworks’ toxic legacy may have played a role in her son’s illness after she kept encountering families from Corby on Fraser’s ward.

As part of her research, she issued questionnaires in and around Corby, and said that 150 families – which includes her own – responded to say they think their children developed cancer as a result of the contaminated waste. These cases dated from the 1980s to the present day.

Raw data on the number of children with cancer in Corby is not publicly available, but Freedom of Information statistics shared exclusively with The i Paper suggest Corby’s cancer rates may be higher than expected for a town of its size.

At least ten children and young people living within two postcodes around the steelworks were diagnosed with cancer in 2025, according to FOI requests to four hospitals serving the town.

Extrapolating that number across Cancer Research statistics, which show there are around 4,300 people aged 0-24 diagnosed with cancer each year, a town of Corby’s size would be expected to see around 4 cases per year, not 10. This snapshot puts Corby cases at roughly 2.6 times higher than these statistics would suggest.

Corby’s district council was abolished in 2021 and replaced by the North Northamptonshire Council unitary authority. It told this paper that officials “monitor the situation very closely” regarding reports of toxic waste and are looking into the new data raised by this paper, noting that NHS figures can be “complex”.

“The leadership of the Council have taken the campaigners’ concerns seriously and are committed to full transparency over this historic issue,” a spokesperson for North Northamptonshire Council said.

The council added that while it recognises “the strength of feeling of the families, who have long been concerned by incidences of childhood cancers and other health complaints in the town”, there is “currently no evidence of an unacceptable risk to human health requiring action by the council under its statutory duties”. 

The council published two reports earlier this year looking at childhood cancer rates in Corby compared to the national average.

One found childhood cancer rates in Corby “are not higher than in Northamptonshire, the East Midlands or England”, while the other stated no Corby neighbourhoods had “significantly” higher rates than the regional average.

Experts from the UK Health Security Agency and the NHS reviewed the findings, according to the council, which has declined to share the raw data from the studies. It did not respond when asked for detail on the methodology used.

Last year, former Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the council “must be transparent about the disposal of toxic water waste”, a sentiment echoed by Lee Barron, Labour MP for Corby and East Northamptonshire.

Martin Griffiths, Reform UK leader of the council, told the BBC in October 2025 that he understood “people are worried about potentially contaminated land and want answers” and added “it is important to highlight that where potentially contaminated land has or is going to be developed, tight rules and procedures are applied to ensure that our residents’ safety is protected”.

Lawyer Des Collins, who fought the 2009 High Court battle, continues to represent Corby families today. He disputes the findings of the council’s latest studies, claiming that the refusal to share the raw data was “ringing alarm bells” for families.

The council has accepted the concerns of families and told The i Paper it had committed to publishing further findings, including cancer statistics on a wider age range and time period.

Families fear that Deene Quarry on the outskirts of the town, where millions of tonnes of contaminated waste were taken when the steelworks shut, is now leaking and accuse the local council of a lack of transparency over the site.

Last year, the council refused to release a list of the town’s potentially contaminated areas after an FOI request was made, saying that the request covered a wide area, “not just sites linked to the former steelworks”.

As such, it determined that releasing a list of locations could lead “to misunderstanding of risk, affect ongoing monitoring or regulatory activity, and unfairly impact third parties”.

A working group that was supposed to be set up as a mediator between the council and community – announced seven months ago – has also not materialised.

The council said it is “committed to full transparency over this historic issue” and will “continue to monitor the situation very closely, keep talking with partners, and ensure residents are kept informed if further information, deemed to be relevant, becomes available”.

Some parents are taking their search for answers into their own hands.

Conclusively linking health harms to contaminated land is a complex project that requires expensive testing and proof of pathways connecting humans to the toxic waste.

Tests of the groundwater organised by parents and carried out by Earthwatch last November found elevated levels of heavy metals at 59 test sites in Corby. In trace amounts, some heavy metals are essential nutrients the body needs to function, like iron and zinc. However, others can be highly toxic and cause severe damage in the human body. High concentrations of nickel and cadmium, used in the steelworks and highlighted as “harmful substances” in the 2009 judgement, were found.

Ian Burke, a professor of environmental science at the University of Leeds and specialist in industrial contamination, said while no conclusions can be drawn regarding human impact from those findings, the groundwater tests are “good evidence that further ecological assessments are warranted at these sites”.

The Environment Agency said the Earthwatch study “does not indicate any significant impact on the freshwater environment”. They added: “We will continue to carry out monitoring in the area and work closely with North Northamptonshire Council.”

The families are seeking an independent government inquiry, with Gaffney and her husband Andy Hinde writing to Sir Keir Starmer this month.

“Saving children’s lives must be a national priority,” they wrote.