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.
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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).
Netflix
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.