Action Briefing Feb 2003 - Mar 2003
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

EXPOSED: Big Business In The Midlands

We’ve uncovered a few examples of how corporate cowboys are riding roughshod over the Midlands, turning our neighbourhoods into ghost towns and making huge profits at the expense of the environment and local people.

Plane Stupid
The Australian Macquarie Bank holds the concession for building and operating the Birmingham Northern Relief Road for the next 53 years and owns almost 25% of Birmingham International Airport, the UK's fifth largest airport. BIA already adds to congestion on the M42, M40 and M6 motorways, yet the Midlands are central to unpopular and environmentally disastrous UK airport expansion plans. Companies like Macquarie would inevitably benefit from airport expansion in the Midlands and are at pains to sell themselves to investors as having access to aviation sector growth. Meanwhile, air travel continues to damages the climate and our health through pollution, fossil fuel emissions, unhealthy noise levels and green belt development.

Road Rage
CAMBBA, builders of the Birmingham Northern Relief Road, are a consortium of construction companies Carillion (formerly Tarmac, responsible for carving up Twyford Down with the M3 extension), Alfred McAlpine, Balfour Beatty (infamously involved with the Ilisu Dam fiasco in Turkey, and illegal dealings with the Lesotho government over another dam project) and Amec (involved in two other devastating dam proposals in Yusufeli, Turkey and Chalillo, Belize as well as an APP paper mill and the A650 Bingley 'Relief' Road). This particular corporate cabal got together to minimise the risk to their profits from the BNRR, a highly controversial project. Abbey National and Bank of America, who financed the hotly disputed Isle of Skye toll bridge, put up the rest of the money.

Chocolate Troubles
Birmingham’s homegrown multinational company, Cadbury, have recently been found to harbour traces of the banned pesticide Lindane in their "Dream" bars. Cadbury is using Lindane in its cocoa growing, exposing farmers and their families to the risk of cancer, skin diseases and respiratory illness. According to Human Rights Watch, cocoa production in West Africa employs 284,000 children, of whom 153,000 apply pesticides to crops. The way chocolate is bought and sold means Cadbury can't tell exactly where the cocoa they buy and sell comes from, making it impossible for them to be sure of high standards. Bar of Green and Black’s, anyone?

Waste Not . . .
A major reason for Birmingham’s poor recycling record in relation to other cities, especially in Europe is that the council is locked into a 25 year contract with French company, Onyx. The vast majority of Birmingham’s rubbish is burned in Tyseley incinerator, which Onyx owns in a partnership with the City Council. If the people of Birmingham want to improve their recycling record before 2019, they may well have to pay Onyx for the privilege.

In Osmaston, already Derby's most polluted suburb, Australian owned Brightstar International are set to build a deeply unpopular waste incinerator which would release pollutants such as dioxins and arsenic as well as bring up to 200 extra lorries a day into the UK's 9th most deprived urban area. Osmaston already has among the worst health statistics in the country and suffers from low birth weights and high lung and heart disease related deaths. Derby FOE is a key member of a coalition of community groups opposing Brightstar's plans.

Ghost Town
The New Economics Foundation recently published “The Ghost Town Report”, which revealed that between 1995 and 2000 the UK lost 30,000 of its local retail outlets - about a fifth of its corner shops, grocers, high street banks, post offices and pubs. If you think this is the stuff of old cowboy movies, just take a walk through any neighbourhood that’s just been “given” a new supermarket. This trend is set to accelerate, with Tesco buying up T & S convenience stores, and the recent battle over who will get Safeways. Locally both Ludlow and Shrewsbury are seeing their livestock markets becoming a Tesco while ASDA (a tentacle of US retail giant Wal-Mart) are moving into Rugby and have their eyes on Hereford.

AGCO Agro
US farm machinery company AGCO has recently announced the closure of its profitable Massey Ferguson tractor factory in Coventry, with the loss of over 1,200 jobs. The company blames high production costs for the closure of the plant, and is moving operations to Brazil and India. The company’s factory in France will remain open. There, unlike in the UK, companies are bound by law to consult workers before such closures are permitted. And Birmingham’s landmark car-manufacturer, MG Rover, is about to start building its new Super Mini .... in India.

Jenny Thatcher & Chris Crean
Additional material by Lisa Rimmer