The Environment Agency has failed to deliver 8,000 leaflets advertising a meeting tonight arranged to calm fears of a environmental disaster in Cardiff.

The meeting, organised in conjunction with local protest group Community Concern, was intended as an opportunity for public consultation with the Environment Agency over the Amersham plc plant in Whitchurch, Cardiff. The company is currently seeking a new production license that is expected to be renewed by March 2002.

Community Concern, formed in 1997 to represent local people concerned about the potential effects of tritium, printed the leaflets and were told by the agency that they would be distributed with an Environment Agency leaflet. But, according to Community Concern, they have failed to deliver any leaflets.

Norma Proctor, of Community Concern, said: "They promised us they would deliver our leaflets in time. But it seems they haven't."

"We spent a lot of money printing those leaflets but when we asked local people they knew nothing of them. Anyone would think the Environment Agency were trying to sweep the issue under the carpet."

Amersham supply medical research materials to large pharmaceutical interests and admit pumping dangerous b-products including radioactive tritium and carbon 14 into sewers near the river Taf. Since 1997 the company, formerly Nicomed Amersham, began bringing radioactive waste from its site in Oxfordshire to dump in Cardiff.

Amersham in Cardiff is the only nuclear facility in the UK situated in a densely populated area. Local residents have consistently claimed the tritium isotopes discharged from the plant are endangering local wildlife and public health.

Amersham Site Manager Graeme Gifford said: "Radioactive isotopes in the manufacturing process generate a certain amount of waste material that has effectively no impact on the environment. It is absolutely black and white that our effect on the environment is negligible."

"Its all part of a general distrust of the "official" scientific establishment." Mr Gifford claimed: "They have a view that there is a sort of conspiracy, and therefore any official statement is still considered to be part of this."

The consultation meeting is to be held tonight at 7.30pm in Beulah Hall, Rhiwbina, Cardiff.