A probe into cancer rates prompted by concerns over a former landfill site which is now a beauty spot found nothing out of the ordinary, councillors are set to be told.

A meeting of Cheshire West and Chester Council's Places Overview and Scrutiny Committee takes place next week where it will go over the findings of a report looking into cancer rates and deaths in Lache.

The work was undertaken after concerns were raised by residents and some local politicians over the former landfill site known as the Backies – or LAPA Fields – with fears being raised over alleged 'higher than average' premature death rates in the ward.

The Backies was originally a brickworks and when production ended in the mid-1950s, the old clay pits were backfilled with municipal waste between 1954 and 1965.

The former landfill site – except for a small parcel adjacent to the north of Toft Close – was acquired by Chester City Council in 1980 and maintained as public open space.

In the 1980s an adventure playground was built but it closed in 2011. It is now a 19-acre green space and community nature park with transformation work being completed last month.

A previous investigation found there was 'no risk' to human health. But after the latest concerns was raised a task group was formed to look again at the data as well as more up-to-date information.

The group met twice between January and April this year to review the work carried out by the council's public health and insight and intelligence teams in conjunction with the NHS's National Disease Registry Service (NDRS). Members were also given access to restricted NHS data.

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Following a review of the findings, a report to the committee said that patterns of cancer deaths were 'relatively consistent' between Lache and the rest of the borough.

It said: "Calculating an annual trend of standardised mortality rates for Lache ward and Cheshire West and Chester back to 2002 showed that whilst recent years are high, there have also been years where Lache cancer mortality rates are lower than the Cheshire West average."

It added: "The longer historical trend also shows that there are regular peaks and troughs in cancer mortality."

In terns of cancer cases, it also found that between 2013 and 2022 there were 10 wards in the borough which also had statistically high cancer rates for the time period, finding that Lache was not alone in being higher than some other parts of the borough.

It concluded: "Following analysis of cancer incidence and mortality data for the Lache wards in comparison with data for the rest of the borough and England as a whole, incidence and cancer mortality in this area is not above that which would be expected."

It added that the NRDS's analysis had concluded that the incidence data 'did not suggest' any clustering of cancers in the area.