If Gent Fairhead succeeds in its bid to build the for-profit waste incinerator at Rivenhall Airfield, many parents of young children in Coggeshall will sell up and move away from the small market town.

Researchers have established a significantly higher death rate among children up to one year old when they live under smoke from an incinerator chimney.

Enfield in north London has the UK’s largest incinerator at Edmonton. The death rate for babies up to one year old in the west of the borough is virtually nil.

But in eastern Enfield, which sits downwind of the incinerator and is exposed to smoke from the chimney, the death rate is between 10 and 12 per thousand of population.

The national average death rate for babies up to a year is 5.2 per thousand.

Coggeshall, a market town of nearly 5,000, lies downwind in a south-westerly direction of the proposed Gent Fairhead.

In Coggeshall there are two pre-schools, one primary school, two private schools and one secondary school.

In short, about 1,500 children will be subjected to the smoke stack’s fumes on a daily basis.

While incinerator filters can take out some particles, it is the ultra fine 1 per cent – the PM 2.5s – that can have chronic effects on health.

Dr Dick van Steenis, who headed a study that looked into the affects of the Edmonton incinerator after there were concerns that a rise in infant deaths in the area was caused by fumes from the incinerator, said: “The danger comes from the particles released into the atmosphere.

“They are of a size that can be easily inhaled into the lung where they lodge and cause damage to the body.

“Newborn babies are more likely to succumb to damage from chemical pollutants in these inhaled particles.”

“Around every single incinerator, infant mortality rates, asthma rates and autism rates are sky-high.”

I personally know of a dozen families that are preparing to move out of Coggeshall should the incinerator get the final go-ahead from Essex County Council’s development and regulation committee.

If this horror show of an incinerator gets the go-ahead I’m sure many more parents of young children will consider moving out of the area once they learn about all the potential health risks from the proposed for-profit incinerator and its 58-metre high smoke stack.

Paul Thorogood Parishes Against Incinerator Coggeshall