AT last we can know.

Now that the building of an incinerator at Marley has been approved, Bradford Council has published the information on which its decision was made.

Until now, most Airedale residents were unaware the scheme was still ongoing.

Published but not exactly advertised, the document is buried deep down in the council website and you need good broadband speed to download it and tenacity to comb through 101 pages.

The main message is Bradford Council and most of its consultees, such as Public Health England, have relied on the Environment Agency for expert advice.

So, we need complete faith in the EA’s judgement and impartiality. However, when you learn that among the data considered were ‘predicted emissions’ and ‘existing background pollution concentrations’, you begin to have your doubts.

How could the EA predict emissions when it is not known what materials might in the future be burned there or where those materials might have been imported from?

We are told emissions from plastics pyrolysis were not assessed because “the applicant states they are not significant”! What, never? As for existing levels of air pollution in the valley, are they not even now a matter of grave concern?

The council is careful to reassure us the incinerator could not function without a permit from the EA. How reassuring is that if the EA employs no better standards than it has already used? And the plant will already have been built when the time comes to issue a permit. That is a relevant factor?

Warnings about valley sites from the World Health Organisation were dismissed, while concerns and objections from the public could not be accepted as “material grounds for a refusal of planning permission”. What body, then, is responsible for in-depth assessment of issues raised by the public? Or perhaps this is the real reason the public has not been kept fully informed; its views could not be ‘weighed’ and so could not be ‘material’ or relevant.

Will the council also ignore a recent warning given by the European Commission that there is a real danger just too many waste-to-energy plants are springing up?

Putting aside other considerations, an overcapacity in this sector will inevitably take investment away from more environment-friendly waste disposal strategies. The UK needs to call a halt to further expansion in this sector. Meanwhile, the question for us remains: do we need yet another waste-to-energy incinerator in Yorkshire to burn whatever from wherever?

DAVID BATEMAN Hospital Road, Riddlesden