NEIGHBOURS of the former nurses’ home Fairfield House are fed up with the amount of dust being produced by the demolition of the site.

The building on West Green Drive, is being knocked down by Willbea Demolition, which said it was doing all it could to prevent dust from occurring.

The tower block has been branded an eyesore after standing derelict for six years and will make way for a new development of homes to be used by NHS workers.

Lyn Blunden, of Sunnymead, said: “We have all been very patient with the building because it has taken such a long time to come down.

“The amount of dust has meant the children can’t go out to play – there is just so much of it.

“We can’t even go out in the garden or put washing out and the weather has been absolutely wonderful”.

Ivor Blunden, 70, of Sunnymead, said: “I don’t think they are spraying enough water. I’m worried about our health and how it’s affecting everyone – especially the children around here.”

Ian Simmons, owner of Willbea Demolition, said demolition was expected to take around four weeks.

He said: “We are doing everything we can. We have a dust buster which sprays water to around 20 to 30 metres and when we are knocking the concrete down we put it on.

“We have asked the water board to use their hydrant, which the fire service use, for dusting down and enables us to control the dust a lot easier but they won’t let us.

“It would mean we could get more water pressure and we could use a cherry picker to get above the building and fire water at it creating less dust.”

Crawley Borough Council confirmed it had received complaints about the dust from the demolition of Fairfield House.

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