FOLLOWING your report (LET, March 11) of Michael Meacher's intervention in the Castle Cement saga and the subsequent u-turn by the Environment Agency, what other changes can we look forward to, I wonder?

Can I, together with the complainants in Waddington and in Worston, now expect an agency letter backtracking on those we received dismissing our complaints of haze and odour in January and February? It was, after all, only five days 'after Meacher' that the agency slapped an order on Castle for virtually identical incidents. And can I expect the agency to go to court on the statements that I, and others, are making on the incidents around Clitheroe Hospital and the grammar school leading up to the enforcement order on March 8? It is only a week since the agency wrote to me (and the other 71?) to say that no court action was to be taken on the 72 statements made after last April's enforcement order; but that, of course, was 'pre-Meacher.'

Finally, the north easterlies of March 9 brought terrible smells, which the agency and Ribble Valley Council confirm could well have come from Tarmac - which means that this tiny corner of a valley, whose topography means poor dispersal (and inter-mixing?) of emissions, contains Tarmac; ICI, which is high on Friends of the Earth's list of polluters and Castle, on which the Minister for the Environment has intervened.

So, please, intervene again, Mr Meacher, investigate what has been going on here and instruct the comprehensive health survey we were promised.

J MORTIMER (Mr), Green Drive, Clitheroe.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.