Armley asbestos disaster
On 20 July 1982, Yorkshire Television broadcast the documentary "Alice - A Fight For Life", predominantly the story of Alice Jefferson, who had worked at the Acre Mill asbestos factory in Hebden Bridge for just nine months when she was 17 years old. Thirty years later she was diagnosed with mesothelioma and given only six months to live. The documentary was also an "exposé on the workings of the asbestos industry." Its broadcast resulted in £60 million being knocked off T&N's share price overnight, headlines in the national newspapers, and the setting up of a government enquiry. Within ten days the government had halved the legal limit for asbestos dust in the workplace. In 1988 Yorkshire Television picked up the "Yorkshire Evening Post" story and produced a second critical investigation focusing on the pattern of deaths in Armley, and contradicting the government's reasons for refusing an inquiry. Called "Too Close to Home", it was broadcast as part of the "First Tuesday" documentary series on 6 December 1988.
Vic Berry
In the early hours of Sunday 10 March 1991, a serious fire broke out in the scrapyard which took firefighters several hours to bring under control, by which time serious damage had been caused. The cause of the fire, which led to widespread distribution of airborne asbestos across the city, has never been determined. As a result of the fire and after months of difficulties, the Vic Berry Company ceased trading in June 1991, the final straw being the failure to reach a deal with its landlord, British Rail, for the decontamination of 170 grounded bodies in the Western Boulevard which contained asbestos. The company owed creditors a reported £4 million. On 7 June, British Rail gave Vic Berry five days to begin clearing the site or it would bring in a contractor to do so. Vic Berry began to trade under his own name from 11 June 1991, employing around a dozen of his former staff, and began to clear the site on 14 June. The closed site was nevertheless left significantly contaminated from the disposal process.