THIS WEEK IN 1993: '˜Cancer street' is safe, says expert

An official report said people living in or near Harbour Way, Tipner, need not worry about the apparent state of disease – revealed by The News earlier in the year.

Nineteen people in the neighbourhood had been struck down by cancer in the previous 20 years.

But the city’s public health expert, Dr Edward Howells, said he would have expected to find nearly 70 cases.

‘The reported figures are not surprisingly high,’ he said in a report to the city council’s environmental committee.

‘There is no evidence of an increased risk of cancer in the area.’

The investigation studied cancers which had sprung up since the building of the M275, which ran past Harbour Way, in the early 1970s.

Among the diseases were three cases of breast cancer, two of Hodgkin’s disease, and cases of bladder, liver, mouth and stomach cancer.

Residents feared they and their children may have been contaminated by poisons stirred up on the construction site.