Sir – During the county council monthly meeting on April 7, Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet member, Roger Belson was asked by a member of the public to bring alternatives to incineration for waste management to a full council meeting.

As usual, this reasonable request was refused. Increasingly, Oxfordshire is becoming isolated in its cabinet’s attitudes towards waste incineration.

In the county we have some of the finest scientists in the world, including leading experts on waste management.

These have been commissioned by other UK councils to evaluate waste management alternatives and they have not come down on the side on incineration (for example North London; Blackpool; Norfolk).

Yet the county council’s cabinet have refused to commission our own local specialists preferring to go to the market place, ie incinerator operators.

These operators, for example, WRG at Sutton Courtenay, have put forward proposals that are in their best interests (most profit), not necessarily in the public’s.

The cabinet claim they are too far into the process to change approach now.

They are, indeed, a long way down the track. They and WRG issue identical press statements in support of incinerators, claiming they are ‘safely used’.

Surely identical press statements are somewhat premature given that the legally obliged to be neutral council planning committee have yet to consider WRG’s proposal?

Clearly an argument solely based on time already spent considering the issue is unacceptable. The council should inform the public more fully why they are loath to re-examine matters in the light of the considerable local public perception of economic, environmental and health risks, as illustrated by petitions against waste incineration numbering c20,000 signatures and the general international shift against it, based on evidence in many countries about adverse impacts.

Catherine Edwards, Oxford