Bridging Lives: Communities exposed to contaminated soil

Bridging Lives converges community-led initiatives with academic research around the issues experienced by communities living with contaminated soils.

Click here to register for the event

Join us for a special public event launching a temporary exhibition – a visual and audio journey – exploring narratives and local contexts of two communities, Southall and Salford, currently living with contaminated soils. Bridging Lives is a story-rich discussion platform that showcases recent outputs of #phytomining -related research, and provides evidence to spark conversations about possible alternative actions.

The exhibition accents the different approaches and political responses in each location, in relation to the impacts of being exposed to contaminated soil, placing solutions under the spotlight.

More information about the community and locations: The Green Quarter, Southall, is an 88-acre brownfield site on the south bank of the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal.

Once the location of the Southall Gas Works, it is being redeveloped for mixed-used including 3,750 homes by Berkeley Homes.

Remediation works to improve the soil condition have included an open-air soil hospital. Beechfield in Swinton, Salford, is a 42-acre site partly on a former sewage works that was demolished in the 1990s.

The site includes an area of statutory allotments that are currently unusable due to high metal contaminants.

The site is under evaluation of Salford council in collaboration with the Salford allotment association for the establishment of a leisure garden and the re-establishment of the allotments area.