THE High Court decision to allow the Viridor rubbish incinerator at Ardley (Oxford Mail, July 9) is really bad news for Oxfordshire.

It will bring in lorryloads of rubbish from far and wide, beyond the county, lands the taxpayer with a multi-million pound contract and will be a blot on the landscape for at least 30 years.

It is strange then that councillor Lorraine Lindsay-Gale, the new county cabinet member responsible, says the ruling is “wholeheartedly welcome”.

Can this be the same Tory councillor who, in October 2009, voted against the incinerator on the grounds it was an unnecessary industrial development in a rural setting?

But well done to the village campaigners who have tried so hard to stop this monstrosity.

With Oxfordshire recycling rates expected to hit 60 per cent next year, the Ardley incinerator can only make money by burning other people’s refuse too.

Labour favours a mechanical and biological treatment plant to deal with the valuable resource that makes up our residual waste.

Simply setting fire to our rubbish, although better than landfill, is a last century solution to a 21st century challenge.

Instead of blindly following the dictates of her predecessor, Ian Hudspeth, Councillor Lindsay-Gale should stick to her guns.

She was right, the Ardley chimney and furnace will disfigure the Oxfordshire countryside for a generation and are quite unnecessary.

JOHN TANNER (Labour), Oxford City Councillor and Oxfordshire County Councillor, Board Member for a Cleaner, Greener Oxford