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C4 rubbish Dumped set-up claims
9:22am Sunday 2nd September 2007
Comments (13)Channel Four has defended reality TV programme Dumped following claims the show was staged.
Promotional material for the show, which begins today, said viewers would see 11 contestants living on the tip in Beddington Lane, Croydon for three weeks.
“We surrounded the group with a representative pile of rubbish. If we'd put them up on the landfill they'd have been exposed to heavy machinery, dangerous gases, which we couldn't possibly have exposed them to - but that doesn't undermine the fact they were genuinely living surrounded by a thousand tonnes of rubbish."
Helen Hawkin
The contestants would be forced to build a life for themselves from things scavenged from the dump.
However the programme's creators have admitted the contestants lived on a special dump recreated for them because of health and safety fears.
Contestants were also given food rations to live on because the show's bosses were concerned about contamination.
Dumped producer Helen Hawkin told Capital Radio: "It wasn't a fix at all - obviously in asking people to take part in the programme their health and safety and well-being has to be our paramount concern - we couldn't put people at risk of death.
"We surrounded the group with a representative pile of rubbish. If we'd put them up on the landfill they'd have been exposed to heavy machinery, dangerous gases, which we couldn't possibly have exposed them to - but that doesn't undermine the fact they were genuinely living surrounded by a thousand tonnes of rubbish.
"We did give them food, again, if they'd had to take food from a landfill site it could have been contaminated, and that wouldn't have been responsible."
Dumped begins today at 9pm and continues on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at the same time.
Your Say YourCroydon Guardian
Paul, Upper Norwood says...
2:45pm Tue 4 Sep 07
Why do a programme on 11 contestants living on the tip in Beddington Lane when they could have outdone themselves showing 330,000 living in the tip of Croydon and paying Croydon Council handsomely for the privelege!
richard francis, thornton heath says...
6:04am Wed 5 Sep 07
tecartons, I sometimes wax philosophical, wondering what goes through their minds, as opposed to through their car windows and doors, or through their fingers elsewhere. Fortunately, some more friends, the town foxes, dispose of the resultant rats; otherwise, we might well face the Great Plague of London once again. Talking of which, try to see the new musical, "Blaze", at the Bridewell Theatre, near St.Bride's in the City,which cleverly recreates the years of 1665 and 1666, including The Great Fire, interwoven with romance - cry your eyes out, Cameron McIntosh (of Les Mis. fame),for this is home-grown, not Parisian, theatre. Finally, on the topic of Council tax, Ken tax, Gordon (his ample legacy) tax and EU tax, would anyone join me in a little bonfire of the vanities? Maybe we could generate a little glow of our own? As a footnote, you could double the borough population figures any day of the week , and still be short on the count.
LB Croydon Press Office, Croydon says...
9:56am Wed 5 Sep 07
For the record the dump in Beddington Lane is not actually in Croydon. But it does serve the needs of a large part of South London and its convenient location in the adjoining borough of Sutton means that we don't waste more money in carting waste off to to sites much further away; hardly a green approach.
Ideally we would like to reduce dumped waste still further. There are many schemes that enable local people to reuse or recycle their waste and so cut the volume that's taken away for disposal. If we succeed in our waste minimisation ambitions then C4 won't be able to film on Croydon's doorstep. That might deprive viewers of 'entertainment' but it would be very good news for the environment.
Paul, Upper Norwood says...
2:37pm Wed 5 Sep 07
Ah! LB Croydon Press Office, touched a nerve have I?
Having lived in Croydon for almost 58 years I have seen the town in the aftermath of WW2 as I grew up in the loft of a house with no running water until the Council transferred our family to the (then) newly built Shrublands Estate.
Now I live in Upper Norwood.
During the interim I have seen Croydon rebuilt, the population of Croydon change beyond all recognition and I have seen the political fortunes of the Council change.
I suspect that I am well qualified to state what I think about Croydon, as was an old school chum who came here from NZ after leaving Kidderminster Road in 1962.
His remark was 'What a dump!'
He was not referring to the collection of waste and neither was I when I referred to Croydon as a tip.
The town has, over 57+ years, gone down thanks to a variety of reasons but it was strange that LB Croydon Publicity office thinks its over the council's rubbish policy.
We were the industrial centre of the South London suburbs, Purley Way being the road to many careers in engineering, electronics and production management. Now it's a shopping centre.
That differs from Croydon High street because it is not a continual bar and restaurant where 25000 regularly eat, drink, vomit, urinate and stagger home on 'auto-pilot.'
My comment is not about rubbish, the location of the tip, green matters or the very taxable and nonsensical carbon footprint; it is, of course about the beautiful town of Croydon as others see it.
LB Press Office, Croydon says...
4:35pm Wed 5 Sep 07
C4's dump is a rubbish tip close to the borough. It's not unreasonable to believe that most of the third of a million who live in Croydon don't want the media suggesting that they're living in a questionable environment - whatever they might personally think of their present surroundings.
Paul, Upper Norwood says...
9:36am Thu 6 Sep 07
That is their opinion, and they receive money to make such statements; mercenaries have no interest in the outcome, only the lucre.
My view is a personal one furnished from many years of living in Croydon.
How many staff in the LB Press Office can boast that said fact?
Likewise LB Press Office staff could have stated,
"Nowhere is immune from change and not everyone considers everything that's happened here is for the best. Far from it."
That is what a majority of persons in Croydon who have lived here for a long time believe.
If LB Croydon Press Office staff don't like what they read here then barrack your leaders for proper change.
Don't try to break the views of a long term resident of Croydon with fancy words and phrase you had to seek from a politician.
Croydon is a dump and not just from the rubbish aspect.
richard francis, thornton heath says...
3:36pm Thu 6 Sep 07
fast becoming undemocratic, intolerant and dictatorial; not only our own governments - national, regional and local - towards their own citizens, but also our foreign policy, where anything is acceptable, including
military aggression
(American-style), paid for by tax-payers, and the export of our much-tarnished (see above) ideologies, such as our so-called "democracy". I would add that, whilst we once had much to be proud of, we are rapidly descending into the realms of the tacky, tawdry, "technocratic" and downright tedious trash-can environment, whereby our health system is falling apart, our education is 4th rate and our position in the world is untenable, based as it is on financial and ethical bankruptcy. For Press Officers to deny us the right to express our views is simply an illustration of how far we have descended. How about a tax on the air we breathe and the thoughts we think (privately or publicly - perhaps we would be taxed less on our private thoughts, but still threatened with brain-washing, neverteless).
richard francis, thornton heath says...
3:48pm Thu 6 Sep 07
richard francis, thornton heath says...
4:15pm Thu 6 Sep 07
Clarence, contrasting the scenes of poverty in parts of South America, and elsewhere, is right to remind us, and Channel Four, of more pressing issues. What we have here is less immediate, but still serious in its wider implications. I happen to like Croydon, including my village of Thornton Heath; I also like the rest of South London, which I have known, on and off, and worked in for more than half my life (35 years). There are many delightful people, of all ages, creeds and origins, with whom I am happy to associate; indeed, they are like a wider, extended family. This does not mean that the environment we find ourselves in is without blemish. Increasingly, our natural habitat, which we share with our wildlife friends, is being destroyed, a "burning" issue which I have written about elsewhere on Crpydon Guardian Online, and about which I feel very strongly - though I welcome all shades of opinion on the subject, since we can then have an intelligent and meaningful debate.Sorry to drop an 'h' in "nevertheless" earlier on - I become mesmerized by the screen in front of my eyes.
Paul, Upper Norwood says...
11:28am Mon 10 Sep 07
Years ago one could reasonably ask, 'What's the best thing to come out of Croydon?' You'd be surpised at the answer; Maritime radio equipment, Radar, Colour TV, Castings from the Foundry, X-Ray machines, Spare parts and accessories for the motor trade, Bar fittings and refigeration, Bubble Cars, Record Players, Ejector Seats, Jet Engines, Converted Carboard, Specialist Labels, Pumps, Confectionary and so on. A variety of products, all from a variety of skills.
Ask the same question nowadays and you'll likely hear the following simplistic answer, "The A23."
richard francis, thornton heath says...
12:55pm Mon 10 Sep 07
"Off the A23," comes the ready response.
However, I do take heart from the many young lads and lasses I meet, most of whom are dedicated to improving the Croydon Borough of today, in whatever way
richard francis, thornton heath says...
1:00pm Mon 10 Sep 07
Jermaine Liburd on Channel Four show dumped
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clarence barrett, essex says...
11:40pm Sun 2 Sep 07