A family have been forced to flee their home after a mother and her teenage son suffered an allergic reaction during work to renovate a nearby play area.
Zoe Rowntree, 43, and her 16-year-old son, who both have a latex allergy, were left struggling to breathe when rubber safety matting was ripped out of the old playground opposite their home.
The reaction led to Mrs Rowntree, her husband Keith and both her sons having to leave their three-bedroom home last weekend before work started to install a new surface made from shredded tyres.
The family have been given emergency accommodation but fear they will never be able to return home because of the risk of Mrs Rowntree and her son suffering even more serious reactions to the new mulch.
Mrs Rowntree claimed today that the issue had arisen because council officials had refused to spend an extra £30,000 on a latex-free surface for the new enlarged play area in Dereham, Norfolk.
She said she had suffered from a latex allergy since she was a teenager, when she would come out in rashes and hives if she came into contact with the substance in items like gloves, and needed treatment with antihistamines.
But her allergy worsened as she got older and around six-years-ago she became sensitive to airborne particles of latex, which is found naturally in rubber, leading to her having to carry EpiPens in case she went into anaphylactic shock.
She said she and her son, who she asked not to be named and who had the same condition, always stayed away from the old play area around 200ft from their end-of-terrace housing association home, as they knew that it had rubber matting.
The safety matting of the old playground in Dereham, Norfolk, is being replaced with a new surface made from shredded tyres
Zoe Rowntree, 43, says work at the site to remove the old surface has already produced invisible clouds of latex particles that triggered her and her 16-year-old son’s allergy
They hadn’t previously suffered any issues there as the spot was hardly used due to its ‘old and dilapidated’ equipment, meaning that the matting was rarely scuffed up.
But they were left gasping for breath when contractors moved on to the site on March 13 and began ripping up the surface, sending microscopic particles flying into the air.
Mrs Rowntree said: ‘Over the following weekend, I was left wheezing with a shortness of breath, my nose streaming, itchy eyes and a tingling to my lips and tongue.
‘I kept our windows shut and tried not to go outside, but I could not avoid it. I took antihistamines but they did not help that much and on the Tuesday I called 101 to ask for advice about managing my symptoms.’
Mrs Rowntree said the operator was so concerned by her wheezing that she was told she needed to make her way to the accident and emergency department at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital
She was taken there her husband and given steroids as an outpatient before returning to her home.
Mrs Rowntree added: ‘My son was also affected with facial swelling and a shortness of breath, although thankfully he didn’t need hospital treatment. He got away with having antihistamines.
‘When I came back, we tried to spend as much time as possible away from home – particularly when work was going on at the site – but we had to sleep in the house.’
The family end-of-terrace home is around 200ft away from the play area. MRs Rowntree said this wasn’t far away enough to avoid the effect of the latex, which has left her and her son gasping for breath
Dereham Town Council refused to spend an extra £30,000 for a latex-free surface, according to Mrs Rowntree
Mrs Rowntree said she contacted Dereham Town Council, which was installing the new play equipment, and told them about her medical issues.
She repeatedly asked if the new surface was going to be made of rubber, which would potentially lead to her being exposed to latex.
The council eventually confirmed that it was a rubber mulch that was going to be used, Mrs Rowntree said, and that using a non-rubber surface would cost an extra £30,000 which it was not prepared to spend.
In desperation, she contacted Breckland District Council which agreed to move the family into temporary emergency accommodation last weekend before work started this week to install the new surface.
Mrs Rowntree, who is a carer for her two sons who both have complex needs, said her family had to move most of their possessions into storage before moving out.
She said: ‘We will never be able to return now. The new play equipment is going to be far more popular and the play area is much bigger so there will be more people there kicking around the mulch and filling the air with latex proteins.
‘It will be particularly bad in hot weather because the mulch will become more tacky in the heat and potentially lead to more contamination.
‘We try and avoid latex as much as we can but we will not be able to avoid it if we return. It’s a shame because we loved living there.
‘It’s great that the council are putting in better play areas and we absolutely support that – but a latex-free material would have made it more inclusive.
‘If you have a peanut allergy you do not go and move next to a peanut farm and we have been put in the same position due to a latex allergy.
‘The issue is that it is not an allergy that is often heard of, so people tend to brush it under the carpet.’
The mother-of-two has been moved with her family into temporary accommodation because of the threat to her health and one of her sons
The new play area is being installed at a cost of £125,000 under the town council’s plans to improve children’s facilities in the community
Mr Rowntree, 48, a self-employed personal trainer, said: ‘The bottom line is that the council could have used a safe alternative to having a latex surface but they chose not to.
‘It has put the health of my wife and son at risk as a result. The particles from the new surface would have been constantly disturbed, which would have just aggravated their allergies.
‘It has been estimated that between one and six per cent of people in the UK have a latex allergy but it goes undiagnosed in many people who might put symptoms down to a spot of hay fever or something else.
‘But it can be a progressive allergy and can get worse in some people. They should not be using substances like this in any play area.’
A local, who asked not to be named, confirmed that she had known about her neighbours’ latex allergies for several years.
She said: ‘My son was playing with some balloons in the garden and she asked for him to stop because her son had an allergy.’
The play area, which is currently still fenced off, is being renovated at a cost of £125,000 as part of the Dereham Town Council’s plans to improve play provisions across the town.
Town clerk Tony Needham said: ‘The proposed rubber safety surfacing is not a novel product. It is used all over the country in many children’s play areas.
‘The advice from the company providing the product was that tyres containing latex are a permeant feature of the environment around roads and so the safety surfacing for the play area poses no greater risk than everyday car tyres.
‘The council is sorry that the resident felt the need to be moved and is sorry that this will have caused stress and anxiety for the family. But after looking into the matter in some detail, it could not find any reasoned justification for changing the surfacing.’
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children states in online advice about latex allergies that anyone can suffer from the condition, although it is more common in people who are exposed to latex regularly.
