JEAN Fooks (Oxford Mail, March 6) claims that the Liberal Democrats have always insisted that the option chosen for waste disposal should be the one least damaging to the environment.

If only they had done!

She has already acknowledged (Oxford Mail, February 12) that when in coalition with the Tories, the Liberal Democrats agreed to pursue a technology neutral procurement process – a very different criterion.

Even giving them the benefit of the doubt, and assuming that privately they disagreed with incineration, the fact remains that they toned down that opposition and agreed to a fudge, presumably to maintain a semblance of agreement with their Tory coalition partners.

It is hard to believe the more recent Liberal Democrat proposals to the county council were anything other than window dressing.

The Tories have a majority on the council, and can – and have – displayed a persistent determination to ignore any protests by opposition parties.

There never was any realistic prospect, even with Labour support, that the council would have adopted the proposals.

Furthermore, even now, the Liberal Democrats stop short of outright rejection of incineration.

Still they seek to take refuge in a fudge – this time seeking to delegate the decision to an independent risk assessment, just as previously they delegated it to the waste disposal industry.

However opposed to incineration they may be, they still want somebody else to take responsibility for stopping it.

From the day incineration was first suggested, Liberal Democrat opposition has, at best, been muted and timorous.

And now they want Labour to join them in empty rhetoric that will do nothing to prevent an incinerator being built? Well, really!

CHRIS ROBINS, Kidlington parish councillor, Foxdown Close, Kidlington