Could living near plant nurseries affect my housing priority?

[Aurora1990]

Hi I am currently bidding every Thursday on buckshomexhoice. We are family of six, 4 kids under 10 years old in two bedroom house. We have been living in this house for 11 years. The problem with this house is, I recently got a comment from one of my friends when she visited us and made me really think. The house is located so close between two plant nurseries. They do work all the time from producing soil to companies to plants and so on. She commented that this could be an environmental risk for my kids for childhood cancers. That is terrifying. Can you please give me any advise regarding this. We can’t rent elsewhere as we need a big house and we can’t afford it at the moment. We are just waiting to be housed by the council as we already have a priority band b and bidding but it’s taking so long. Could this be a ground to be moved to and A bcos of where the house is located. Thanks a lot. Any insight will help.

Yes

I think it’s reasonable to be worried. There is plenty of information online from reputable sources identifying a link between plant nurseries and increased childhood cancer risk.
I think the council is unlikely to change your housing priority because if
they formally acknowledge it’s a health risk then they can’t reasonably put anyone else in the house. They also presumably gave planning permission for the nursery to be so close to a residential property so they probably won’t want to back down and admit they got it wrong.
You will probably have to fight quite hard to get them to move you on the basis of the nursery as it would involve them acknowledging a mistake.
You could approach the nursery and ask what chemicals they use on the plants. I think you can find soil testing kits online to find out what’s blown across from the nursery into your own garden. An organic nursery probably won’t be a worry but one that’s pumping pesticides and fertilisers out all day would be a concern.
Is there anything else about your circumstances that you can use to put pressure on the council?

If your googling gives you American results then yes, you’ll find there is a higher risk. There is also a higher risk if you live near electricity pylons, if anyone in your family smokes or spends time with smokers and if you eat a lot of processed meat, like ham and bacon.

If your question is whether in the UK, you should worry, the answer is almost definitely no. UK plant centres have strict rules about when they can spray pesticides and what they can spray. You might smell fertilizer but you won’t get a lung full of pesticides- this is the risk. US plant centres are able to use more damaging pesticides and on a much larger scale than in the UK.

Of course it was in your control. If you had a third “by surprise” you coii you of have taken more permanent measures to ensure no 2’d “surprise”, people live where they can afford, they live near busy roads, factories etc. some people choose to live in the middle of no where surrounded by farmers spraying crops.

No it doesn’t bump you up the housing list if you want to move increase your income so you can afford somewhere else.

Can you post one of these links ? Other posters, incl myself, and can't find anything UK specific. There is one study from California that I can find:

Residential proximity to plant nurseries and risk of childhood leukemia (fao.org)

The conclusion is :

"For birth residences less than 75 m from plant nurseries, we found an increased risk of childhood leukemia (odds ratio (OR) 2.40, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.99-5.82) that was stronger for acute lymphocytic leukemia (OR 3.09, 95% CI 1.14-8.34).The association was robust to choices of reference group, cut points and data quality. Our findings suggest that close proximity to plant nurseries may be a risk factor for childhood leukemia and that this relationship should be further evaluated."

But this was in the US, where they use many pesticides that are banned in the UK/EU.

Even that is technically non-significant for overall leukemia (the 95 CI cross 1.0).

And this is California, a US state with a lot of nurseries.

The report seems to be more of "I wonder if there is a risk" thing than one triggered by a cluster of cases.

Full study is here. But it needs a Scientist to follow it.

Residential proximity to plant nurseries and risk of childhood leukemia - ScienceDirect

You’ve been renting that house for 11 years and decided to have four children under the age of 10. You should’ve stopped at 1 or 2. You won’t be a priority because you made the choice to overcrowd the house. Top priority should be women with kids who are fleeing from domestic violence etc. Plant nurseries are fine to live near.

Also birth control exists - pills, coil, injection. I doubt you got pregnant twice whilst on these. Some women miss a pill or two or think they’re having sex outside the fertile window and then claim they’ve accidentally got pregnant.

PhD in epidemiology - used to reading papers.

Sadly, the OP doesn't actually want to understand the papers, she just wants to be backed up that this will move her up the list (notice that she doesn't ask about mitigating the (made up) risks to her children while living there, just if she can use it to move up the list.

1 no if anything you live in a nicer spot than many if you have plants nearby and 2 you chose to have a large family, why if you can’t afford a suitable home? What can you do to increase income so you can afford a larger house.

What have the Council said about you refusing a 3 bed home that you bid on?

And what are you doing to try and improve your pain?

Do bear in mind too that if you do manage to get on Band A, the home they offer you might be anywhere, not necessarily even in Buckinghamshire.

Yes it is - just don’t have sex if birth control is against your religion!

Especially if you are absolutely pro choice but personally couldn’t live with yourself if you had an abortion.

The paper seems fair enough. It is statistical and geography, so I assume the next step would be to do actual sampling in the area for pesticides, and what pesticides.

It looks like it came from other studies to do with agriculture in general. This Danish one in particular:

Residential proximity to agriculture and risk of childhood leukemia and central nervous system tumors in the Danish national birth cohort - ScienceDirect

From that : " In models adjusted for total animals, the highest tertiles of use of three herbicides and one fungicide were associated with elevated risk of leukemia but no associations were statistically significant; there were no associations with CNS tumors."

"Risk of childhood leukemia was associated with higher crop area near mothers’ homes during pregnancy; CNS tumors were associated with higher cattle density. Quantitative estimates of crop pesticides and other agricultural exposures are needed to clarify possible reasons for these increased risks."

This is all good worthwhile work. And sorry to insert politics, much of this sort of stuff is being de-funded by Trump.

So if folk want this work to continue, don't vote for any Trumpian parties.

do you mean garden centres?

I think we’ve looked at the same study.
It does say children are particularly sensitive to exposure to pesticides.
This article from the Guardian references American research but two of the three
pesticides it mentions are legal in the UK. Paraquat is the one that’s banned.
The jury is still out on glysophate but I wouldn’t want to be regularly exposed to it.
I think it would be sensible for OP to find out which chemicals the nursery uses and how they are used and then work out the risk to her family.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/05/pesticides-childhood-cancer-study

www.pan-europe.info/press-releases/2025/06/new-scientific-publication-confirms-glyphosate-causes-cancer-eu-“safe”

I bet you wouldn't even give this a second thought if you were living in an appropriate sized property. If a house comes up in a high pollution zone you would bit on it wouldn't you? You weren't bothered about the potential health risks of overcrowding when you decided to have 4 children.

The housing officers will see this as nothing more than an attempt to cheat the system, because that is what it is.

I would sooner ask God for 'forgiveness' for using contraception than risk overcrowding my children. Now that your DCs are here you and your husband need to sleep in the living room and give you then more space.

Yup. That California study and the Danish one I mentioned in another post, esp the latter, do appear to be checking for the risk from pregnancy.

The California one was interesting because of the way nurseries are situated in California. That is under powerlines. I don't mention powerlines cos of the risk from them ( there is none), but because it is "spare" land in residential areas that is put to use. And the very slight increase there was housing within 70 meters of the nursery.

The Danish one was agriculture overall.

I just can’t understand why you don’t move? If I was genuinely concerned that my home could increase my children’s risk of cancer - I wouldn’t be sitting around for years waiting for a handout. Get a second job each and pay your way - show your children what hard work can achieve.

Because the OP is only interested in whether her house’s proximity to two plant nurseries can magically whoosh her up the waiting list for council housing.

Dicamba and glysophate have
been linked to cancer in the Americans studies and are legal in the UK. Paraquat is now banned but was deemed safe and legal for 45 years. It takes a statistically significant number of cancer cases to link them to pesticide use. Possibly the studies are being done in America because they have more large scale nurseries close to large numbers of homes. In the UK fewer people might be affected so the data isn’t there.
I thinks, for peace of mind, it’s worth the OP asking the nursery what they are using and how it’s used so she can judge the risk better.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/05/pesticides-childhood-cancer-study

I doubt that you'd really have grounds to go up the priority list for this unfortunately, unless you somehow managed to prove that it was causing harm to your children.

Lots of people are in social housing in London and other big cities where air pollution is a real problem and definitely does cause harm, but they won't all be being rehoused because that is just part of modern living in a city.

I know you're in a slightly different situation but I think it's unlikely they'll take this concern seriously.

You'd definitely have to get environmental health involved in the first instance if you wanted to have any kind of chance, but really, I think one of your kids would have to have developed a health issue before they'd even begin to take it seriously.

Also worth noting that California appears to have a notification system for spraying certain things. It needs to be notified and recorded. So if worried, it would be worth checking what the UK regs are on it.

And when it comes to statistically significant or insignificant, the boffins are pretty good at spotting the difference, even though childhood leukemia is rare in the UK. About 650 cases per year, if there was a cause they would find it. That is what these studies are about after all.

If a significant % of these 650 cases per year were linked to garden centers, we would know about it.

So I think the OP can put their mind at rest. Maybe talk to the facilities as you say. Ask if they spray, and what they spray, and if they are spraying, then ask for a bit of notice to shut windows. Depending on the wind. I doubt they would spray in high wind anyway.

I remember decades ago in Scotland there was an incinerator that caused worry of baby deformities. The incinerator did handle dangerous stuff. I can't remember the details but it was shut down. Here is a link to that.

Re-Chem International Ltd - Falkirk Council

I post that, because the UK does take these things seriously.

because it turned into stupid debate and people mostly here act like they’re superior in morals etc. I lost interest. I will do my own research and evaluate the risks etc. thanks for your comment even tho it’s very judgemental and full of ignorance.

Yes