Sir – Accurately describing the hugely unattractive impact that the proposed Sutton Courtenay incinerator would have over a wide area of south Oxfordshire, Steve Canadas (Letter, May 14) asks how our county council would possibly approve an application that so blatantly contravenes its own structure plans.

Unfortunately, it is equally hard to foresee the council’s planning committee denying its ruling executive’s undisguised wish to erect such buildings at this location and at Ardley.

Having shortlisted these two sites and invited their owners to make full planning applications, with all the time and expense that this involves, the county council may have already committed itself to accepting both, before awarding the lucrative contract to just one.

It is easy to decry opponents as conspiracy theorists, but people’s fears about the health risks from this type of incinerator are complemented by deep anger at the way the administration has conducted the process.

The council has no updated Minerals and Waste Plan, which puts it in breach of statutory requirements introduced in 2004.

The executive failed to seek the independent professional advice on waste disposal that other authorities have responsibly commissioned.

It allowed itself, through its “technology neutral” stance, to be led by the nose by commercial operators.

Now that these have filled the thinking gap, our head of waste management is quoting the promotional material of one company, often word for word, in his official statements.

In another of his excellent articles on this matter, Reg Little (May 7) rightly described it as potentially one of the ruling group’s most far-reaching policy decisions.

So far, though, such policy as we have seen has been either improvised or over-ruled by expediency. The people of Oxfordshire deserve much better from an authority that once claimed to be “caring countywide”.

Christopher Owen Appleford