Sir – I am bemused by councillor Mitchell and Belson’s letter criticizing The Oxford Times (January 22). Are they trying to whip the media in, as well as the ruling party councillors?

Their faith in the Health Protection Agency(HPA) and the Environment Agency(EA) carrying out independent assessments, demonstrates a misunderstanding of what these agencies actually do. They do not, in fact, typically carry out parallel independent technical assessments, but rather review and comment on the studies submitted by the applicant and, in the case of the HPA drawing on their heavily caveated guidance.

More important, their misunderstanding of the agencies’ roles unintentionally served to mislead the other councillors in their considerations.

Another key point is that, in the specific case of the WRG planning application for Sutton Courtenay, the Environment Agency are refusing to comment on the pollution control aspect of the planning application, saving their input to the future Environmental Permitting stage.

This is highly unusual: normally, for major applications such as incinerators, the EA would comment at the planning and environmental permit stages.

In the planning consideration of a 25-year project, we are, therefore, being asked to rely on the commercial applicant’s health risk and air quality assessments. This is notwithstanding the fact that significant omissions and inconsistencies have been identified in the Environmental Statement submitted by WRG. Despite this, the council is refusing to commission an independent review of the health and air quality risks. There is therefore a void in the technical consideration of the planning application, which can only but add to the “public perception of the risk”.

I do hope that wiser heads will prevail. In their determination to push through this flawed concept, the councillors concerned are doing a grave disservice to Oxfordshire.

Robin Draper, Sutton Courtenay