YOUR report 'Air hot line starts to ring' (LET, July 26), saying residents kicked up a fuss, is an understatement. After all, someone, somewhere in the Ribble Valley, has been poisoned every day for the last five years.

After two lots of monitoring and now with a third taking place, it was quite obvious that whoever wrote the article had not read the summary book on the last £500,000 pollution survey. To say that the air quality was 'similar to other areas' is just a nonsense.

The summary goes on to say that air in Grindleton south, Chatburn and Clitheroe Hospital has a concentration of very fine dust particles which settle in the bottom of your lungs comparable with city centre levels.

What other 'similar areas' have air quality with all this pollution being emitted every hour down on to the population - especially in a rural area? Is it not time, after five years, that this was stopped, or is the Environmental Agency just going to carry on monitoring and talking for another five years?

S HARGREAVES, Ribble Avenue, Grindleton, Clitheroe.

FOOTNOTE: As a newspaper, we have to report both sides of the Cemfuel debate. Although people may disagree with the findings of the Environment Agency's survey, it did state that air quality in Clitheroe was 'as good as anywhere else'.

The survey said high levels of pollutants were found in Chatburn, but air quality in the village was said to be 'very good' most of the time.

The Agency also stated it would help Ribble Valley Council and East Lancashire Health Authority to identify increased dust levels in the vicinity of Clitheroe Hospital, targeted by the survey as a pollution blackspot.

In the original report about the survey (LET, July 17), the Agency, Castle Cement and clean-air protesters were all given a chance to comment on the survey - Editor.

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