RE the announcement by Lafarge Cement UK that it is their intention to invest over £10m in upgrading the kilns at their cement works in Westbury, thereby guaranteeing employment within the local community.

There seems to be some rather significant strings attached to this, namely that such investment appears to be conditional to:

a. Wiltshire County Council approving their planning application to extend the chalk quarry by a compulsory purchase, encroaching on the White Horse scenic area

b. the Environment Agency licensing the burning of Recycled Liquid Fuel and operating under the recent UK governmental Substitute Fuels Protocol legislation.

The Environment Agency seems to be purely interested in complying with the EU Waste Incineration Directive and has thereby lost any objectivity in terms of acting in accordance with its mission as an independent oversight agency in terms of protecting the environment.

The onus is now on the chief executive of Wiltshire County Council, the Health and Safety Executive and those councillors appointed to the planning committee as a result of the elections on May 5 to ensure that the safety of the local community remains paramount. The mission statement of WCC specifies the need "to balance growth with the protection and conservation of the environment".

Do the shareholder interests of a global corporation like Lafarge override those objectives and principles? This is not intended to be a NIMBY letter where are the benefits and the long-term health guarantee to the west Wiltshire community?

B H WHITE

Bratton