A WORLD renowned expert on contamination says developers set to build nearly 200 social homes on the toxic former Ravenscraig Hospital site are putting cost-cutting above health and safety.

Link Group Ltd bought the land for £1 and is set to receive £15 million of public money for housing families there but bosses have no intention of removing any of the poisoned soil.

A remediation strategy currently before Inverclyde Council for approval has been dismissed by campaigners as a 'burial plan' because it proposes the use of controversial capping measures to keep dangerous pollutants at bay.

Professor Andrew Watterson — who is an advisor to the World Health Organisation — today questioned Link's failure to address a catalogue of ongoing concerns, and its insistence that health risks to future residents are 'very low'.

The strategy document, prepared for Link by engineering consultants Fairhurst, states that 'non inert/hazardous waste will incur higher rates of landfill tax' if removed from the site.

Professor Watterson told the Telegraph: "This would indicate that risks here are not in fact so 'very low'.

"You can't have your cake and eat it.

"As the report flags in several places, the mitigation solution is offered and not the removal of hazards.

"This would de facto reflect a cost rather than public health assessment."

Link chose not to comment on the cost implications of removing the contaminated soil from the site when contacted by the Telegraph.

A spokesman for the firm — a registered social landlord — said: "The most sustainable development option is to re-use the material on site and break the pollutant linkages in-situ to the end users of the site which is what is outlined within the remediation strategy.

"The alternative option of removing significant quantities of materials off-site to landfill is no longer considered to be either environmentally sustainable or environmentally friendly, not to mention the associated health and safety concerns relating to increased haulage transportation on the local road network."

Prof Watterson says he has examined the report closely and is in doubt that financial factors have played a key role in the decision-making process.

He told the Tele: "The report makes clear that cost was a factor in several decisions not to remove contaminants from the site."

The report's assertion that the risk of gas inhalation by future residents is also 'very low' has also been called into serious question.

Professor Watterson — who has also written papers for the British Medical Journal and the Lancet — said: "Again, the question here is whether there is a need to run a 'very low risk', or avoid the risk altogether by removal of hazards — or not building on site at all.

"The decision to build and cap is one relating primarily to cost/availability and not health protection.

"There is no safe level for carcinogens in a scientific sense.

"This [report] is a technical, industry and regulatory reference list, and like all such reports it does not include the latest scientific research on, and independent peer-reviewed assessments of, either the material, technology and methods proposed.

"References are made to adopting the worst case scenario in places about ground water, but these I would argue are not supported by the relevant literature."

Among the pollutants lurking within the ground at Ravenscraig are cadmium, mercury, arsenic and lead.

We revealed earlier this year that the levels of contaminants were as much eight times above what the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs considers as 'suitable for use'.

Professor Watterson, of the University of Stirling, said: "The Fairhurst report 'does what it says on the tin' for competent environmental consultants, but does not necessarily answer all the remediation and mitigation questions that exist for the site.

"Reports can be over optimistic about the effectiveness of mitigation and remediation when the supporting evidence base does not exist."

The report also declares that contamination capping layers have a design life 'in excess of 60 years' but Professor Watterson points out that no detail has been given on exactly how this figure has been arrived at.

The professor previously stated that capping layers 'will have a finite life', adding: "There is no such thing as capping and containment that will last forever.

"I am not against brownfield sites being developed but I am against brownfield sites being developed that have been contaminated by hazardous substances in the past."