Corby Residents Go on the Warpath in 'Toxic Town's Second Half

Corby is on the warpath in the second half of Netflix’s Toxic Town – we shift focus to the 2000s where the long-gestating legal case gathers steam against the town council for their negligence that poisoned local pregnant women with toxic waste. But, like a lot of landmark legal wins, it’s not an easy road – after years of campaigning, episode 3 begins in 2002 with the Regional Health Authority releasing a report that falls short of the high burden of proof needed to prove that Corby Borough Council knew of the toxic contamination at their steelworks reclamation site and they wilfully covered it up. What’s more, a report from Anglian Water concludes that the contamination never reached the women’s own water supplies, so that rules out waterborne poisoning.

Susan is convinced that their lawyer Des Collins won’t stick around after such a hefty blow to their case, but he’s undeterred – he’s sure the report was incompetently handled. Still, feathers are ruffled among the mothers – Susan kicks off at head councillor Roy Thomas when the report is presented to the claimants and Maggie is persuaded to walk out of the meeting by her husband Derek (Joe Dempsie), who wants to protect his own career with the construction company implicated in the scandal, Rhodes and Miller. 

(Sidenote: many of the names and persons in this series – like Rhodes and Miller or Roy Thomas, were invented, probably to avoid costly libel suits levied at Netflix — which they now know something about. It makes sense, but you can’t help but feel like writer Jack Thorne has softened the sharpness and anger of Toxic Town’s intended societal critique.)

Speaking of Rhodes and Miller: Sam Hagen has been keeping up the good, if thankless fight of holding Corby Borough Council accountable, like arguing to suspend the construction contracts during an ongoing police investigation. He is ousted from the council when it comes time to reelection and blows a fuse at his longtime colleague Roy, unsuccessfully running as an independent candidate on a platform of ending corruption – clearly, Corby wants renewal and not more red tape. Meanwhile, Ted is basically a shut-in – disillusioned and depressed at the hopelessness of his efforts.

Some progress on the case: the RHA report made fatal statistical errors and is basically useless, rejuvenating Des and pushing their campaign into the public sphere. Susan and Maggie go on Good Morning Britain, driving a wedge between the women as Susan has a far higher opinion of her less posh friend Tracey. 

But there’s worse news for Tracey coming – in an effort to make their case airtight, Des will have to eliminate claimants whose children were not born with upper and lower limb differences, meaning Tracey won’t get any share of the compensation, even though she’s instrumental to proving that the toxic waste was airborne through heavy dust as she worked at the reclamation site every day.

When everybody has filed into court in episode 4, it’s still an uphill battle. Des’ team dig into an obscure German study to counteract the council’s defence against the dust cloud theory; Derek doesn’t want Maggie to testify in case it reflects badly on him and his ambitions with Rhodes and Miller; Sam aids the defence but the man they need, Ted, can only be called to the witness stand by issuing him a “witness summons”, aka a subpoena – and with the state he’s been in for a while, there’s no telling how favorable his testimony will be to Des, Sarah, et al’s plight. 

Thankfully, a series of rousing testimonies redirect the case towards justice: Susan defends her parenting from a classist, sexist line of questioning regarding her intake of alcohol and use of SSRIs; Maggie explains how drivers were instructed to offload dump trucks of waste as quickly (and therefore recklessly) as possible, all while preserving her husband’s professional and personal dignity; Tracey testifies on the amount of dust that travelled on staff vehicles and how her proximity to the waste likely claimed the life of her daughter.

The most cathartic speech comes from Ted, who owns his own faults and lambasts the council’s negligence in a manner that basically seals the case – much to the pride of Sam Hagen. 

Outside of testimonies, Susan’s family stands up for themselves: Connor’s deadbeat dad reenters the picture in Episode 3 once news of a court case starts to brew, and reveals to Connor that he’s willing to be his dad again so long as he gets a nice slice of the compensation funds. Susan and her two sons tell him where to shove it, kicking him out of the house.

The series ends with Des shouting down the cowardly Roy, a party for the claimants in Colby, and Tracey and Susan at the graveside of Tracey’s daughter, reflecting on the road they’ve travelled and the hardship that brought them together. As the pre-credits on-screen text tells us, there’s no way of knowing the mismanaged reclamation project’s broader impact on Colby’s health – landmark court ruling aside, Corby is just the story of another town considered disposable by the folk who ran it.

All four episodes of Toxic Town are streaming on Netflix.