Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats share the concern about the decision Oxfordshire County Council’s Conservative cabinet took to choose Viridor as the preferred operator of an incinerator for Oxfordshire’s rubbish.

This Lib Dem stance is a reflection of a long term policy that argued for the option chosen to dispose of the waste to be the ‘least environmentally damaging’ rather than the cost of the process being the over-riding deciding feature.

This position was over-ruled by the Conservative group when they shared power with the Lib Dems.

Sadly, Labour’s position was more tangled, and the surprising thing about the recent letter from councillor John Tanner (Oxford Mail, September 9) is his assertion that Labour would not have chosen incineration.

In fact, the Labour spokesman on the Environment, and member of the Environment and Economy Scrutiny Committee up until June this year, was strongly and vocally in favour of incineration, and led a scrutiny review to recommend that outcome to the cabinet.

Moreover, in January last year, the Labour group entered an unholy alliance with the Conservatives to suspend standing orders rather than debate a Liberal Democrat amendment at a council meeting, an amendment expressing regret that the only solution being looked at was incineration, and requesting other issues were looked at before any contract was signed.

As well as wanting a clean solution for Oxfordshire’s waste, we need Labour to come clean on their past record!

Anne Purse, Shadow Cabinet member for Growth and Infrastructure Oxfordshire County Council