Bravo to the Radley Lakes' campaigners.

It has been a long, hard and expensive road, but they have finally seen off RWE npower - for the time being at least.

The owners of Didcot Power Station have decided to put on hold their controversial plan to dump tonnes of spent fuel ash in Thrupp Lake.

All the way, they have been fiercely opposed by local protesters, whose dogged, determined fight has paid off.

Had it not been for them, tipping would almost certainly have started.

It has been a typical David versus Goliath battle, with a small group of villagers pitched against the might of an international company.

The firm adopted hardline, often ruthless, tactics against its opponents.

Now, after months under fire, it has concluded that at present, it has no need to dump ash.

The reasons it gives are that there has been an upturn in the waste recycling market, and that less coal has been burned because of the mild winter.

It is true that the winter had been kind, but there have been strong suspicions that the company did not look too hard to find alternative means of disposal.

It was too easy to dump the ash in a lake a few miles down the road.

The campaigners will now be hoping that the company will abandon its plans altogether.

With the coal-fired power station due to close in 2015, that should not be beyond the bounds of possibility.