Pictures show how worried Derbyshire residents fought pollution battle 25 years ago

And now the story of how residents in Killamarsh, battled a multinational business over waste site and incinerator near their homes, complete with dramatic Grim Reaper costumes, has been turned into a book.

Our gallery shows some of the pictures from the campaign, launched after toxic gas clouds were released by accident twice, 25 years ago next month. The campaign saw residents even head to France to take their fight direct to the French company which owned the site, on the Norward Industrial estate between the village and Beighton, as well as protests on the streets and at the company’s local site.

More than 20,000 people were reported to have been forced indoors as the 300-foot plume of thick orange gas spread over the area after the nitric-dioxide gas had escaped from a storage tank.

The Derbyshire Times reported on the fight many times during the campaign which ran over 1998 and 1999, and former campaign press officer, John Moran, has now written a new book, called Two Clouds Too Many and available on Amazon, drawing on some of our pictures from the time.

RASP fought SARP

He said: “It was about an Environmental Campaign group known as RASP (Residents against Sarp Pollution) in their battle with a French multinational, Vivendi, to remove a toxic waste site and incinerator at SARP UK from the village of Killamarsh.

“It was formed by residents of this old ex-mining village, and it took them to the Houses of Parliament, EU in Brussels and Strasbourg and saw them march down the Champs-Elysees in Paris.

‘Two Clouds Too Many’ book

“Their story is told in the book I have just written, Two Clouds Too Many'. It affected close on 100,000 people in the south west corner of Sheffield.”

John, who worked as a milkman in the village, was one of the main members of the 18 month campaign, which succeeded in getting the site closed.

He said at the time, after the campaign succeeded: “We learned that if ordinary people stick together and are determined enough, they can move anything.”

Toxic gas leaks

RASP was formed in June 1998 in response to two incidents of toxic gases escaping the SARP UK chemical plant in May 1998. The campaigners eventually won the closure of six of the seven sections of the site in late 1999.

SARP were later fined for the waste leaks.

In June 2000, SARP UK, announced that they had made the decision to give up the right to operate the incinerator at the Killamarsh plant. It was pulled down in March, 2002, just under four years since the start of the campaign.