Some serious TV stars are bringing us a heartbreaking yet empowering story based on a real-life battle against poisonings through contaminated waste.
Toxic Town, starring Sex Education and The White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood, Doctor Who's Jodie Whittaker and Bridgerton's Claudia Jessie, sees three mothers band together to demand justice from their local council after their children experienced congenital disabilities allegedly as a result of toxic waste in their area. The case went all the way to the High Court, and the dramatisation is now available on Netflix.
The shocking true story happened in Corby, a town in Northamptonshire which was home to a huge steelworks industry. After the industry shut down in the 1980s, the local council cleared the land for housing and transported millions of tonnes of toxic waste through the town in open lorries.
Then, in the 1990s, women who had been pregnant when the waste was being transported started reporting birth defects in their children, such as missing fingers and toes. The families worked together with a lawyer to demand justice, and after nearly 20 years of legal battles, Corby Borough Council was found to have been negligent in its management of the toxic waste, issued an apology to the families, and agreed a financial settlement.
The series was written by Jack Thorne, who co-wrote IVF movie Joy, which explored another incredible true-life story of the lives of those who pioneered the fertility treatment.
He opened up to Netflix's TUDUM about the power and “internalised blame” the female protagonists in Toxic Town face. “There’s just so much internalised blame that these women obviously had [to deal with],” he said, adding that despite this, they were able to “collectively join together and work to actually empower not just themselves and their children, living or dead, but a whole community.”
The case itself has been described as “the British Erin Brockovich” and made history when it comes to how congenital disabilities and environmental waste are viewed.
Here's everything we know about Toxic Town, including the true story it's based on.
Toxic Town plot
Netflix's synopsis for the series reads as follows: “Based on one of the UK’s biggest environmental scandals, Toxic Town is the story of the people at the heart of the Corby poisonings. Focusing on a group of mothers who took on a David and Goliath battle for justice, the series traces the years of their fight as a terrible truth comes to the surface.”
Is Toxic Town based on a true story?
It is indeed. Claudia Jessie, Aimee Lou Wood and Jodie Whittaker play three real-life mothers who campaigned for justice from their local council after their children were born with congenital disabilities as a result of the Corby poisonings.
This took place in a former steel town in Northamptonshire, where the local council transported contaminated waste from old industrial sites and did not follow the appropriate safety measures, resulting in toxic materials being released into the air and environment surrounding the area.
A huge number of children were then born with disabilities primarily affecting their feet and hands. It was believed that their mother's exposure to the toxic waste while pregnant caused these abnormalities. So a group of families (portrayed partially by Claudia, Jodie and Aimee) took Corby Borough Council to court for negligence.
This led to a ruling in their favour from the High Court in 2009, which was the first time that UK court recognised a direct link between congenital disabilities and industrial pollution. Talk about amazing women making history.
Thorne has described the series as “a genuinely working-class story". “It’s a story of people who are not part of the system that have never thought the system would work for them, working within the system and [fighting for] the result they deserved," he told Netflix's TUDUM.
Toxic Town cast
Joining Aimee, Claudia and Jodie on the Toxic Town cast are Robert Carlyle (The Full Monty), Rory Kinnear (The Diplomat), Stephen McMillan (Boiling Point), Lauren Lyle (Outlander), Joe Dempsie (Game of Thrones), Michael Socha (This Is England), Brendan Coyle (Downton Abbey), Matthew Durkan (Wedding Season) and Karla Crome (Carnival Row).
Toxic Town release date
All four episodes of Toxic Town are available now on Netflix. The series premiered on Thursday 27 February 2025.
Toxic Town trailer
Watch a small part of the drama below. We see these mothers come together in the fight to bring the true culprits that caused their children's pain to justice, with Jodie Whittaker delivering the heartbreaking line “this is what mothers do, we blame ourselves”. All with I Will Survive playing throughout.
