Land where developers want to build 200 homes has been poisonously polluted for almost 150 YEARS

The sprawling grounds of the former Ravenscraig Hospital were twice used as a town dump for waste on an industrial scale in the 1870s and 1880s in a process which led to disease and death, the Telegraph can reveal.

Raw sewage was also a major problem at the 83-acre site during the Victorian era, with the governor of the Smithston poor house there recording in 1886 that 'the land at present reached by the sewage is rapidly becoming overdosed'.

A modern-day environmental report, which is being used to support the proposed development of 198 social homes, has highlighted 'multiple exceedances' of dangerous substances — including the presence of cancer-causing chemicals.

Campaigners opposed to the contentious project are now calling on Inverclyde Council to remove the Ravenscraig site from the local development plan (LDP) which concludes that the land is suitable for housing.

The activists point out that 'contaminants have no half-life' and they argue that the weight of evidence now uncovered means that the land is 'unfit for human habitation'.

Research of the Greenock Telegraph and Greenock Advertiser newspapers of the 19th century has revealed that land at Ravenscraig was twice offered as a 'free coup' — or dump — for the disposal of industrial ash.

Industries requiring such a facility at the time included tanneries, iron foundries, engine works, bone yards and chemical works.

Because the land at the time was outwith Greenock's municipal boundaries, it appears that no licence or registration regarding the use of the Ravenscraig grounds as a public ash pit were ever recorded.

Skin disease broke out among people who were moved to the poor house and the situation became so bad that an entire wing of the hospital had to be used to care for them.

Meanwhile, a 'deadly disease' — as it was reported at the time — struck livestock in the Kip Valley and the stream that ran through their grazing area was fed by ground waters that ran from the Ravenscraig site.

Matters were so serious that an analytical chemist was hired to identify the contaminant in the water.

Fast-forward to the present day, and the fresh environmental report, by civil engineering consultants Fairhurst, states: "It is considered that a linkage to human health through ingestion and dermal contact exists on the site."

The report also notes 'an exceedance of arsenic was present in samples of ground water'.

Fairhurst has urged 'vigilance' in case 'additional sources of gross contamination' are found.

One campaigner said today: "This site now needs to be taken off the local development plan.

"The very fact that a planning application has been made shows contempt for the health and wellbeing of people in this area."

Edinburgh-based social housing provider Link Group Ltd — which is affiliated with Inverclyde's Larkfield Housing Association — bought the entire site for £1 in a back-to-back deal involving Ravenscraig's former owner, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, and the Scottish Government.

Link — which has refused to answer questions regarding the contamination — stands to receive around £14 million in grants if the proposed social housing development is approved by councillors.

Prior to the Telegraph's revelations today regarding the deep history of contamination at Ravenscraig, one campaigner said: "Without a full grid survey of the entire site it is impossible to know the full extent of the toxicity that will ultimately be present, or indeed the full impact on human health."