FOLLOWING the recent cold spell over the Christmas period, a spokesman for the Council gritters was quick to boast that 150 tonnes of salt had been applied to our district's roads during that time, principally to ensure that all our cars could be kept on the move.

Had an industrialist been responsible for inadvertently submitting the same quantity of sodium chloride to our local water system, a section of the same assembly would no doubt have been equally rapid in prescribing the appropriate fine on the perpetrator for polluting the environment.

B. D. SHAW