As the land is cleared, a crimson dust that will later be shown to contain cadmium and other highly toxic substances is stirred up; open-topped trucks full of the stuff career past unknowing residents to a messy landfill.
Susan (Jodie Whittaker) and Tracey (Aimee Lou Wood) meet on a maternity ward, before both give birth to children with disabilities.
Susan McIntyre’s partner works at the site, while Tracey Taylor is an accountant there who has to sluice thick red sludge off her car every evening when she goes home.
Meanwhile, concerns raised within the council about poisonous soil are silenced with bribes and bullying by senior figures who won’t allow anything to jeopardise the construction project, which had a dodgy tendering process.
Whittaker and Aimee Lou Wood are exceptional as mothers battling corporate greed after a very British scandal in their town.
