It is utterly astonishing that our county council appears ready to gamble huge sums of public money on the outcome of the public inquiry into the Ardley incinerator (Oxford Mail ViewPoints, July 15).

In a move seemingly inspired by Alice in Wonderland it is poised to enter a binding agreement with a company that has been refused planning permission to build its waste-burner but will now be entitled to substantial compensation if its appeal against that decision fails.

The council’s lame explanation that it is merely following standard procedures illustrates perfectly how government at all levels has become able to sleep-walk taxpayers into accepting as normal huge wasted expenditure on costs that far exceed original estimates, staggeringly expensive consultancies and projects that never materialise.

Oxfordshire County Council dug itself into a hole on waste disposal by lazily leaving the choice of technology to commercial operators, by failing to acknowledge the districts councils’ success in recycling and by committing itself to a proposal on a scale so large that its own planning committee rightly refused to allow the over-bearing building and the massive traffic movements needed to service it.

In spite of extensive media coverage, this misguided determination has so far had sadly little impact beyond the communities that would be seriously damaged by it. The latest development may just change that.

Next time we are faced with the loss of a valuable service or even potholes that we “cannot afford”, respectively, to retain or repair, we would do well to reflect on all the money that is set to be siphoned away into supporting a “standard procedure” that has a less than even chance of bringing any benefit to Oxfordshire and a very good chance of leaving us significantly less well off than we are now.

Callum MacKenzie, The Old Pump House, Drayton Road, Sutton Courtenay