Sir – Dr Darling is quite right to ask that Oxfordshire County Council take a lead in relation to considering incineration as the means of using Oxfordshire’s waste productively (Letters, February 12).

To give the council some credit, when they first considered incineration to be the answer, they were under the impression that they would be getting proposals for energy-from-waste plants and evidence about negative health and environmental impacts of mega-incinerators had only just begun to accrue. As the council leadership has frequently commented in The Oxford Times, they are not competent to assess the health and environmental risks of the proposed incinerators.

Leaving that aside, they now know that the plant proposed by WRG for Sutton Courtenay is most unlikely to produce usable heat.

Even Didcot A power station, located adjacent to the proposed site, has not done that. They also know that using incineration to generate electricity is less than 15 per cent fuel efficient.

What would be efficient is the generation of gas substitute through anaerobic digestion, a product which the National Gas Grid is crying out for, to the extent that it is demanding the Government introduce policies to limit the “wasteful” practice of incineration.

By continuing to view incineration as the only alternative, Oxfordshire County Council are now trailing other councils, such as in North London and Blackpool, in their appreciation of the economics and financial fall-out for taxpayers of incineration as a method of producing energy-from-waste.

They may not regain the lead on this, but they really must consider the economic realities and what the county may gain in revenue from efficiently producing the product the energy market wants.

Otherwise they simply appear as if they are petulantly digging their heels in over an outdated decision.

Abi Wilson and Pauline Wilson, Sutton Courtenay