Energy from waste the best solution for county

SIR – Coun Michael Headley thinks we are 'feeding the rubbish monster'. He would, that's what his political party is telling him to say. Both are wrong.

As Coun Headley well knows, as an ex member of the Bedfordshire Waste Partnership, Bedfordshire County Council has been working with borough and district partners over many years to deliver a realistic solution to what we do with the waste we can't recycle – an energy from waste plant that uses the waste we all throw away for the production of electricity and heat.

I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome the borough council onto the Bedfordshire Energy and Recycling project board, this is the executive body set up to deliver this much-needed facility, and

I am now pleased that the borough is fully behind this project.

What is inexplicably lost on Coun Headley is that creating energy from waste is the best solution for Bedfordshire – for example, significantly reducing the methane and CO2 emissions which come from landfill sites.

Recycling is key to the success of the facility, and at the county
council we are aiming above 50 per cent. Recycling performance
currently is touching 40 per cent, with plans to achieve 45 per cent this year.

Coun Headley is also incorrect in saying that we will be importing waste. The facility has only ever been planned for the county of
Bedfordshire's waste.

Coun Tom Wootton
Member for highways and waste,
Bedfordshire County Council

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Everyone has rights, not just travellers

SIR – Coun Sue Oliver (Lab) comments on the 'human rights' of the travelling community in this country, and the 1996 Tory legislation removing local council responsibility to provide them with suitable sites to live on. She credits the current administration with a reversal of this policy to be completed by 2011.

So, my point is what about the 'human rights' of the tax-paying
citizens of this country? Is it not taxpayers' money that the local councils use to clean up the mess?

Is it not taxpayers' money that pays the wages of the police who, thanks to EU human rights legislation, have no powers to search travellers' sites, or to move them on when they are illegally encamped on council and private property?

Is it not the taxpaying public who will pay the 'additional funding' Coun Oliver endorses? Please remember councillor, these people choose to live away from the rest of us. They must be laughing to themselves and think we are all barking mad!

P Brown
Goldington Road, Bedford

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Christian faith works because it offers hope

SIR – I have been following with interest the considerable amount of correspondence generated by MP Alistair Burt.

I wonder if any of the numerous correspondents who react so negatively to any suggestion of faith, particularly Christian faith, in public life have ever realised or considered that hospitals, universities, schools, the abolition of slavery, even the Trades Union movement and many major aid agencies such as the Red Cross, Oxfam and Christian Aid, to name but a few, all have their roots in the Christian faith?

The Rev Steve Chalke MBE says in his book Faithworks: "Social reform is about far more than resources and externals. Real change comes from within. The greatest poverty our nation faces is a poverty of hope. That's why Christian faith is potent. Faith transforms lives, and that's why faith works."

I commend the website www.faithworks.info to all your readers.

Mrs J Sancto
Purbeck Close, Bedford

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Horse's death proof of rural road dangers

SIR – I was distressed to learn the full details of your story outlined in 'news in brief' (T&C, June 12). The bias here was evident.

There was no mention of the horse owner's distress at having lost a valuable and much-loved animal, or even the rider's trauma of nearly being killed on a rural road – it was all about how harrowing it was for the driver to hit the horse.

As a horse owner and rider myself, I have experienced too many near misses and count my blessings that I have lived to tell the tale.

Perhaps only when such incidents are reported in context will people slow down on country roads; next time it may not be a horse that is killed, it might be a family on a walk. I can see the headlines now.

Ms Kim Gubler
Woodpecker Lodge,
Ford Lane, Roxton

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Electrification of line is long overdue

SIR – With regard to the report on the Marston Vale line (T&C, June 5), why is this line still the only diesel- operated line in the area? The
Watford to St Albans branch line was electrified many years ago, so why not the Marston Vale line?

After the Bedford to St Pancras line had been surveyed, I was told by a surveyor that the line between Bedford and Bletchley had been surveyed for electrification. So, if the line was electrified, the branch could then be fully modernised and brought back to line speed of 60mph and three coach trains.

At the annual meeting of the Bedford to Bletchley Rail Users
Association earlier this year, passengers were complaining they could not get on the single coach diesel unit with prams and bicycles. In steam and early diesel days no-one was ever refused on a train with a pram or bicycle.

M Jeyes
Mowbray Road, Bedford

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Raffle appeal for senior citizens' festival

SIR – This is an appeal to the thousands of pensioners living in north Bedfordshire who will attend on July 2 the Festival For Older People at Bedford Corn Exchange.

Donations of prizes for the popular raffle would be appreciated. Offers should be sent to Bedford Association of Senior Citizens, via the Guild House, 65 Harpur Street, Bedford MK40 2QT.

Ian Pettit
Spokesman, BASC

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Motorists not always deserving of a bad press

SIR – People complain about motorists being impatient and rude.
I don't drive and cross many roads in Bedford and find the opposite.
Drivers always stop to let me cross the road; politeness works two ways, I always acknowledge their kindness.

Drivers are given a bad press, that should not always be so.

Karl P Sorembik
Mallard Hill, Brickhill

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MP is wrong to attack housing minister

SIR – I am disappointed that the MP for Mid Beds has responded to the proposed eco-towns by attacking rather than engaging with the housing minister.

Rather than peddle misinformation, I would like to outline the four-stage consultation process that has just begun. Stage one is a three-month preliminary consultation which ends in late June. Stage two is a further more detailed consultation over the summer. Stage three is the final shortlisting later this year. Stage four is the submission of a planning application.

I am deeply concerned by any proposed housing development, particularly where it is out of proportion to existing villages, facilities and infrastructure.

During stage two I will be campaigning heavily to ensure that the consultation is far reaching and that the views of residents and small business owners are heard. If they are not, I will work with action groups to launch a legal challenge to the consultation process, or a
judicial review of the final shortlisting.

Now is our opportunity to shape the proposals into intelligent plans with respect for both the countryside and existing development. We must also press the council to make better use of the 1.3 per cent of existing homes in Mid Beds which are empty for extended periods of time.

David Reeves
Labour parliamentary candidate for Mid Beds

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Come clean on incinerator plans

SIR – I fully support the comments of Coun Dave Hodgson in the article about the incinerator proposed for Stewartby but need to raise that the information given to the council appears at odds to that given to affected local communities.

At a special meeting organised by Marston Moretaine Parish Council specifically to discuss the plans, the county council representative repeatedly stated that "only waste from Bedfordshire would be burned – the council would not bring in rubbish from elsewhere".

This was clearly untrue if the plans were for a design to handle more waste than currently goes to landfill.

In addition, they acknowledged that the site would operate 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.

When queried about the volume of lorry traffic through local villages every day and night, he was unable to answer the question, let alone comment on the anti 'green' reality of such a volume of lorry movements.

Equally concerning is that progressing the incinerator at Rookery Pit South will utilise about ten per cent of the site and by default create planning precedent on the remaining 90 per cent.

Another nine privately-run incinerators to handle London's waste perhaps?

Stewart Long
Station Road,
Marston Moreteyne

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Event relived days of California Ballroom

SIR – I would to say a big thank you to everyone who came along to the California Ballroom roadshow on Saturday night, and to the Times & Citizen for your support.

The California Ballroom Roadshow at The Gallery Club in Bedford was a demonstration of the fondness still felt by people for the old California Ballroom in Dunstable and the music that was played there.

Revellers were treated to five hours of soul and Motown by professional DJs Paul Gray (ex California), Rob James (ex Pink Elephant) with back-up from Terry Oliver.

The next roadshow will take place on Saturday, September 13 and
tickets will be on sale on the website from this week www.california-ballroom.info

We had two winners to our draw to Soul Sunday in Bedford Park. Those who bought tickets online were entered into the draw as a joint
venture between The California Ballroom website and local company Eastern Breeze.

Paul Gray
Severn Close, Flitwick

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Join those wishing to donate organs

SIR – May I through your columns thank the 269 people who took time out from their shopping on Saturday mornings in May to answer the
Bedfordshire Humanists' survey on organ donation?

We had two purposes: to encourage participation in the NHS donor registration scheme, and to gauge support for the introduction of
'presumed consent', where those who do not want their organs used after their own death would be invited to opt out, replacing the present opt-in system.

Of the 167 not currently on the register, 75 per cent said they would have no objection. Overall, only 11 per cent of our interviewees said they would not want their organs used – but of course we could only get the views of those who were prepared to stop and talk to us.

On the issue of presumed consent, over 75 per cent thought it was a good idea.

If you are among the 50 per cent of the population who would be
perfectly happy for your organs to be used to help others in need, but have never quite got around to it, please visit www.uktransplant.org.uk where you can register online.

Charles Baily, chairman,
Bedfordshire Humanists
Sidmouth Close, Bedford