Toxic Child Care - town planner/ethicist’s comments
(From a Senior Town Planning Lawyer)
Your email (media release) raises a deeper issue than merely one of “pollution” in a directly measurable or hazardous sense.
Measurable limits can be described as a worst case scenario. Above that science says that the limits are intolerable.
That is merely for the average person - ie an adult.
Where are the studies for such impacts on children of tender years??? I wonder if they even exist.
Children should not be reduced to an “average” - they are our living future.
A greater care must extend to children than the adult population. Every child must be given the best opporiunuty for a healthy, satisfying and rewarding life.
Any risks associated with the development of a young child’s life and mind must not be greater than what the adult population is exposed to.
An adult can assess that risk and work in such an environment. A child cannot.
The pressure of the inadequacy of child care places should not drive parents who are struggling with the financial difficulties of raising a young family to take risks with the future well being of their children.
This is not a market driven issue or one of choice.
The level of risk is such as to make this kind of choice unacceptable and unavailable to young parents.
We would not allow a hotel next to a primary school.
It says something about our society that young children and child care centres are being relegated to the risks asociated with light industrial areas and major roads, particulary in locations where heavy haulage vehicles frequently use such roads.
We would not allow the development of a new residential complex in a light industrial area. Why should a child care centre even be capable of considseration in such an area? This makes no sense at a fundamental level and must be addressed.
Have we become so insensitive to the sound of joy and laughter of children that they must be drowned out by the jarring sounds of traffic noise. Surely this Is not the start to life and learning we want for our children.
PS: BENZENE & SPRAY PAINTING ISSUES
The benzine issue/toxic hazard can be VERY VERY serious and with a bit of web searching you would get a clear picture, but I don’t know enough about it. I don’t know what the proportion of diesel driven vehicles on major roads in WA is to determine the severity of this issue in our local environment. But benzene can be very harmful to human health.
I also think that the DEP has guildelines for keeping certain industrial uses such as spray painting away from sensitive land uses. (DEP = Dept for Environmental Protection.) Must be on the Web. Talk to an officer of the DEP is probably the best. You could also refer the proposed child care centre to the DEP for formal environmental assessment. This could have the effect of suspending the local government decision making.
The general principle or “shortcoming” with planning law (depending on your point of view) is that who comes onto land first (say spray painting), can’t be controlled by the later use (say child care) because the spray painting was on the land first.
This is also the general principle of the law of Nuisance.
So, the most important thing is to make sure that the “later” land uses are right in the first place. Otherwise, they are too difficult to fix up later and may have in that time already caused irreperable harm.