Open Questions
Every investigation on this site ends the same way: with a question put to the body that holds the answer. This page gathers those questions in one place, names who each one is for, and records where it stands. We are submitting them formally, and we will publish whatever comes back, in full, beside the question it answers.
What the status means
- Preparing, the question is set out in our reporting and we are preparing to put it formally to the body named.
- Awaiting response, a formal request has been filed and the statutory clock is running. We show the date filed and the date a reply is due.
- Answered, a reply has been received; we link it and, where needed, respond to it.
- Partly answered, some points were addressed and others declined. We say which.
- No response, the reply-by date passed with no substantive answer.
Nothing here is an accusation. These are requests for information and for comment, of the ordinary kind any public body should expect. The record simply shows which have been asked, which answered, and which not.
Live requests, awaiting response
Three Freedom of Information and Environmental Information requests were filed on 5 August 2026. All three test specific statements AGC Chemicals Europe has now put on the public record about the October 2024 fire. Each was filed through WhatDoTheyKnow, so the request, the reply and any refusal are public as they happen. You do not have to take our word for any of it.
| Filed with | What it asks | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Health and Safety Executive | The RIDDOR report for the fire, HSE’s response to it, whether any enforcement action was taken, the site’s COMAH tier on the day, and any record of the substances involved | Awaiting response. Filed 5 Aug 2026, due by 2 Sep 2026 |
| Environment Agency | Notification received from AGC, any pollution incident record, any air, water or soil monitoring done around the fire and its results, enforcement action, and correspondence with the company | Awaiting response. Filed 5 Aug 2026, due by 2 Sep 2026 |
| Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service | The full incident record for 2410007359, what was recorded as burning, whether hazmat resources attended, whether breathing apparatus was used, and whether any advice was issued to residents | Awaiting response. Filed 5 Aug 2026, due by 2 Sep 2026 |
Why the fire service request matters most. AGC declined to say whether residents were warned, on the basis that it would not comment on the operational decisions of the emergency services. That makes it a question only Lancashire Fire and Rescue can answer, and we have now asked them directly.
Why we are asking regulators to confirm what the company has already told us. AGC has stated that it informed both the HSE and the Environment Agency, and that no enforcement action followed. We have no reason to doubt it. But a company’s account of its own regulation is not the same as the regulator’s record of it, and the difference is exactly the sort of thing this site exists to check. If the regulators confirm AGC’s account, we will say so as plainly as we would say the opposite.
Environment Agency
| Question | Type | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Publish the AQMAU-C2478-RP02 air-dispersion model in full, with the wind data, stack height and emission figures behind it, and the basis for the 1km advisory zone and for where Phase 3 soil testing was concentrated. | FOI | Preparing |
| Release the underlying Phase 2/3 residential soil dataset and the map coordinates of every soil sample. | FOI / Data | Preparing |
| A second PFOA soil peak sits to the west-north-west, in a sector pre-classed “low deposition” and sampled at a quarter the density of the south-east. Reconcile that classification with the measured peak, and confirm whether that sector will now be sampled and residential-tested as thoroughly. | Comment | Preparing |
| For the non-PFOA PFAS compounds found in Phase 3 residential soils, has the source been investigated, and can that analysis be shared? | Data | Preparing |
| What is the source of the PFOS, PFNA and PFHxS found in eggs near the site, none of which has a documented link to AGC’s permitted operations? | Data | Preparing |
| Is there a route for a resident to have their own garden soil tested, and what criteria selected the 71 properties already tested? | Data | Preparing |
| How do AGC’s IED permit and Thornton Facilities Management’s discharge consents interact, was the split of permit-holders deliberate, and does it leave any gap in PFAS accountability at the point of discharge? | FOI | Preparing |
| Why has discharge consent 017290384 (Royles Brook) remained unchanged since 21 January 1999, with no PFAS monitoring requirement added? | FOI | Preparing |
| For Hillhouse, give the dates of PFAS detection, council notification and public disclosure, and the reason for any gap between them. | FOI | Preparing |
| Why has no public warning sign been placed at the River Wyre discharge points, given the measured PFOA and EEA-NH4 levels, when allotments were closed precautionarily on far less? | Comment | Preparing |
Wyre Council
| Question | Type | Status |
|---|---|---|
| From which boundary, and from what point on it, is the 1km advisory zone measured, and will a map of it now be published with the methodology and scientific basis? | Data / FOI | Preparing |
| Which authority owns responsibility for defining the 1km advisory zone, the Council or the Environment Agency? | Comment | Preparing |
| Which body decided to decline blood testing for residents, was a clinical risk assessment carried out first, and was the Council Leader consulted on the FOI response that set this out? | FOI | Preparing |
| What specifically makes biomonitoring “not appropriate” at a site where land has already met Part 2A contaminated-land criteria for PFOA in produce? | Comment | Preparing |
| On what basis were 7 of the 71 tested properties designated “high risk,” and how many properties exceeded the Dutch PFOA benchmark or the Occupation Road allotments threshold? | Data | Preparing |
| What criteria would a residential property near Hillhouse need to meet for a formal Part 2A designation? | Comment | Preparing |
| Will the Council use its Town and Country Planning Act powers for new applications near the site, and has it taken legal advice on PFAS planning conditions? | Comment | Preparing |
| Why has the investigation scope been limited to historic atmospheric deposition from a single point, when the permit lists 15 air-emission points and the site also discharges to the River Wyre? | Comment | Preparing |
Lancashire County Council / Multi-Agency Health Cell
| Question | Type | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Release the full figures behind the kidney-cancer assessment, case counts, expected counts, SIRs and confidence intervals by small area, so the “no further investigation” conclusion can be independently reviewed. | Data / FOI | Preparing |
| Your public statement omits the report’s own observed and expected counts, its SIRs (218 and 181), its confidence intervals and its “statistically significant” designation of two areas. Why were these left out, and do you accept that characterisation? | Comment | Preparing |
| Your statement says the environmental data was used “for contextual comparison only and not to assess causation,” yet also states “no indication of a link.” Will you acknowledge no causation assessment was done, and now commission one? | Comment | Preparing |
| Was the distance test cross-checked against the Environment Agency’s directional soil findings, given the contamination runs by direction rather than radius and one peak aligns with the significant excess? | Comment | Preparing |
| Given cancer latency, and that registration records the address at diagnosis rather than at exposure, what confidence attaches to a “no gradient” finding? | Comment | Preparing |
| Was the local rate compared only against neighbouring areas that may share the same exposure, rather than against the England rate, and could that mask a real excess? | Comment | Preparing |
| Has any assessment been made of PFOA’s non-cancer harms against local health data, and if so where is it published? | Data | Preparing |
| Will blood testing be commissioned for residents, applying the reference values already used at Bentham and by the Jersey panel? | Data | Preparing |
UK Health Security Agency
| Question | Type | Status |
|---|---|---|
| What guidance did UKHSA provide that informed the Council’s position declining blood testing? | Data | Preparing |
| Did UKHSA, the Food Standards Agency and the Drinking Water Inspectorate receive the Environment Agency’s 2022 PFAS data for these sites, and what did each do with it? | FOI | Preparing |
AGC Chemicals Europe
The October 2024 fire is recorded in AGC’s own FY2024 accounts, filed at Companies House on 8 September 2025 (company 03825057): “The business experienced a fire in October 2024 within the Steam Pyrolysis section of the plant. This caused an outage of 3 months.” A separate note records an incident on 19 October 2024 and an insurance claim for lost income. Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service incident 2410007359 logs a commercial building fire on Fleetwood Road North at 16:50 that day, naming no operator or site. AGC confirmed the fire in its reply to us of 22 July 2026. See our analysis of the accounts for the full record.
AGC replied on 22 July and again on 4 August 2026, asking to be attributed to “an AGC Chemicals Europe, Ltd. spokesperson” and confirming its response was “developed by an internal team and approved by our Directors”. Both replies are published in full on the two articles below.
| Question | Type | Status |
|---|---|---|
| What burned in the October 2024 fire, what was released, and was the surrounding air monitored during the fire and its three-month aftermath? | Data | Declined, put twice. Now asked of the regulators instead |
| Did the fire service issue any advice to residents at the time? | Data | Declined. Now asked of Lancashire Fire and Rescue |
| Why was the public not informed of a fire that shut a major-hazard chemical plant on a residential boundary for three months? | Right of reply | Declined, put twice |
| Was the fire reported to the HSE and the Environment Agency? | Right of reply | Answered 22 Jul. Both were informed, and AGC states no enforcement action was taken. Being verified with both regulators |
| Why was the plant down for three months? | Right of reply | Answered 22 Jul. Fire damaged equipment and pipework critical to manufacturing; long replacement lead times |
| Does AGC dispute any figure, quote or characterisation in our analysis of its closure, given every figure is drawn from AGC’s own audited accounts? | Right of reply | Answered 22 Jul. AGC does not dispute the figures: “You are quite right that our Companies House accounts show a profit for some of these years” |
| How can the accounts show a single principal activity already including resale, if they consolidate two businesses? | Right of reply | Partly answered 4 Aug. The wording was restated rather than reconciled |
| Which legal entity carries on the Amsterdam resale business, and under what registration? | Right of reply | Partly answered 4 Aug. Confirmed as a business unit of AGCCE, not a separate company. No registration or address given |
| Will AGC provide the turnover split between the Amsterdam resale business and the Hillhouse manufacturing site? | Data | Declined 4 Aug, on commercial confidentiality. Provided to unions and employee representatives only |
| Will AGC confirm the name and capacity of its spokesperson? | Housekeeping | Declined. Corporate attribution only |
WSP (the Environment Agency’s contractor)
| Question | Type | Status |
|---|---|---|
| The “About the Authors” page is fully redacted, yet the PDF metadata names an author. Confirm the lead author and explain why the page was redacted. | Comment | Preparing |
| Was one panel of the report’s key soil chart generated by an AI tool, and if so what checks were run against the source data before publication? | Data | Preparing |
| What were the actual PFAS concentrations in the 13 field-blank samples that exceeded the lab detection limit, and how were they judged “not significant”? | Data | Preparing |
| The report says the wider inspection covers “other linkages of concern,” including risk to the water environment, but never elaborates. Specify what they are and where and by whom they are being assessed. | Data | Preparing |
Other bodies
| Question | Type | For | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Was the October 2024 fire reported to the HSE, what did HSE do about it, and was any enforcement action taken? | FOI | Health and Safety Executive | Awaiting response, due 2 Sep 2026 |
| What does the fire service’s own record of incident 2410007359 show, and were residents warned? | FOI | Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service | Awaiting response, due 2 Sep 2026 |
| Was the Food Standards Agency notified of the egg-testing findings, and what action did it take? | FOI | Food Standards Agency | Preparing |
| Why is the 1,700-page Phase 3 soil sampling report published only through a third-party flip-book service, rather than as a downloadable, searchable document as the Environmental Information Regulations and the accessibility regulations require? | FOI | Wyre Council | Preparing |
This page is updated as questions are submitted and as answers arrive. If you are one of the bodies named here and believe a question is inaccurate or already answered, tell us and we will correct the record.