SPECIALLY FOR YOU

At Christmas time, this season of Good will to all men, Rugby Cement, the Environment Agency, and Rugby Borough Council take great delight in jointly wishing the Rugby Residents a Very Merry Christmas, and A Very Happy New year too!

You have NO CHOICE but to accept our generous GIFT, especially chosen for YOU!
We hope you will accept it in the spirit in which it is intended. We are sure you are going to have loads of fun and enjoyment from our surprise GIFT, that we have rushed through in secret, just in time to bring you GREAT JOY at Christmas time:

A lovely CO-INCINERATOR for Rugby residents, to endure for years, and to ensure you really do have a white Christmas! And summer too! It can do lots of things, give out black smoke, and pollution, odour and dust, Plumes, and fumes, from many different stacks and vents, and burn/cook 3 million tonnes material a year.

It can emit about a million cubic metres gas an hour just from the main stack. And 600,000 cubic metres from the low level sources : "pure air with particulate!" And it can burn almost anything including, tyres, London's household and commercial waste; Hazardous waste, sewage sludge, and even the protesters known in the
industry as "mad cows".

We are sure you will all simply love it, though we cannot guarantee that it will not break down every day!

Guaranteed hours of fun for old and young. There is even an I SPY pollution
handbook.

Have your say on cement plant in the Rugby Advertiser
CONCERNED residents and supporters alike can help shape the future of a controversial scheme at Rugby Cement works.
Rugby Borough Council's Sustainable Environment Panel is hosting the event to discuss their response to plant owners Cemex's own summary of tyre-burning trials at the Lawford Road site.

The meeting, provisionally scheduled for 5.30pm on Thursday, December 14, was arranged following publication of the company's report, which is currently being considered by the Environment Agency (EA).


Sean Lawson, head of Environmental Health at the council, said he hoped for a 'focused' debate.

He said: "It's not what you think about Cemex, it's about issues in the document.

"There has obviously been great interest in the community in relation to tyre-burning and as the council, we wish to represent those views.

"The time scales don't allow too much discussion, so it has to be a short and focused process."

The EA - responsible for the plant's permit - are set to make a decision on the long-term future of tyre-burning at the plant.

Cemex - who hosted the trials last year - say the scheme will provide an environmentally-friendly and more ecomomic way of producing fuel.

However, opponents have voiced fears over potential health effects from the process.

Cemex's report has been logged on their website at www.cemex.co.uk and at the council's public register at the Town Hall.

The EA will consider all comments before making a decision, scheduled for the end of the year.

Guests wishing to speak at the meeting - at the Town Hall offices - should make written submissions beforehand.

These can be sent to Mr. Lawson at the council's Environment Health Department c/o Town Hall, Evreux Way, Rugby CV21 2RS or left at their reception.

Speakers can clarify their position and elaborate on their comments at the meeting.
Meanwhile, Mr. Lawson has also addressed some of the issues raised by letters to last week's Advertiser postbag.
We received several letters from people supporting anti-cement campainger Lilian Pallikaropoulos and questioning the council's role in scrutinising the plant.

Mr. Lawson said: "It keeps being repeated that it's our fault.

"But the environmental regulation of the plant lies fully with the Environmental Agency. They are responsible for the plant's permit."

Mr. Lawson also pointed out that the decision to build the plant was given by Warwickshire County Council, with the borough council only used as a consultee.
30 November 2006

POSTBAG

ADVERTISER: TOXIC FACTORY EMISSIONS AFFECT BEHAVIOUR OF NORMAL PEOPLE

I note your reports on Mrs. Lilian Pallikaropoulos, some alleging that she is a strange obsessive or that she is manifestly

unreasonable. Mrs. Pallikaropoulos was perfectly normal when she left Hargrave, her native village. Is it possible that the toxic factory emmisions (the subject of so many local complaints),have caused these changes?

The complaints from the council employees are to be expected from the type of person who is asked to wake up from their normal state of torpor, and to perform the duties for which they are handsomely rewarded by the long-suffering local taxpayers to whom they owe a duty of care.

William Steele,
Hargrave,

THREE CHEERS FOR LILIAN P IS WHAT I SAY!

Lilian P should be congratulated by Rugby people for standing up for our rights to breathe in fresh air. No one knows the effects of tyre burning on susceptible people's health. RBC haven't stood up for our rights like she has - I wonder why? They were quick enough to bring in the Clean Air Act years ago. (The first Clean Air Act was in 1956 after the Great London smog of 1952).

Regarding there being no complaints about Cemex's toxic dust emissions in October 2005 causing skin allergies and irritation, people may not have connected this to the dust, as evidence would not have been collected. Presumably Mr Hancock does not suffer from asthma or other breathing problems?

Mrs Dodd
Alwyn Rd Rugby.

LETTER OF THE WEEK.
WHO APPROVED THIS MONSTROSITY?
LILIAN SHOULD BE GIVEN £50,000 TO PROTECT HEALTH!

Lilian P, on behalf of a large group of ratepayers asks questions of her local council which complains that it has cost £50,000 to respond. It's a sum that pales into insignificance related to that paid out to staff and councillors.

Her questions relate to whether it is right that a company recently fined £400,000 (during TYRE BURNING TRIALS) for seriously polluting the environment should be operating within the town boundaries. I doubt they would have been fined such a considerable sum if they had not caused a very serious hazard to the health of a town that is governed by our local council.

Prior to granting consent for the new development there were warnings given which were completely ignored, giving rise to serious questions, and this lady has asked them in the interests of the whole suffering population. Given the responsibility of the council for our environment it is laughable that not only have they set out to actively thwart this woman in her efforts to greatly improve it, but they are whingeing at the sum it has cost them to do so.

It would have been a more appropriate action to have allocated her £50,000 in the INTERESTS of PUBLIC HEALTH to take on this task for which they have no inclination!

At an interesting presentation by executives of Cemex a few weeks ago the Chief Executive was asked "Why did they not put the development in the wilds of Bedfordshire at the site where their raw material was quarried, rather than maintain a multi-million pound pipeline across three counties to transport it to Rugby?" His clear response was "We'd never have been able to get planning permission for it." I think that simple statement says it all. If only we had planners with the wisdom, and common sense of the Bedfordshire Councillors.

Our Council grizzles that she asks the same question more than once. Would that be because she is till waiting a straight answer to the first time of asking? Only one question intrigues me "Who, by name, on the Council voted for the development of this HAZARDOUS MONSTROSITY within the town boundaries in the first place?

Roy McCarthy
Newbold.

WE SHOULD BE GRATEFUL FOR ENVIRONMENTAL AID

The people of rugby and surrounding areas should be grateful for the hard work that Mrs P, Rugby in Plume, and others including "some" councillors have put in to help save health and the environment. The adverse effects of incineration processes are well-known. Nationally and Internationally people are campaigning against incineration including : The Zero Waste Alliance; Friends of the Earth; Communities Against Toxics; Greenpeace: the Global Anti Incineration Alliance; doctors and professors.

We will probably never know the real cost of incineration: the heart attacks; cancers; respiratory problems; birth defects; infertility; premature deaths etc. Some of the health effects of chemical and particulate pollution are cumulative; some may take decades to become evident, making it difficult to evaluate.

As well as the human cost there is the pollution of the natural environment, and the unsustainable use of what nature can provide - we are burning valuable re-usable resources.

Name and address
Supplied.

LILIAN PROVES WE ARE NOT PROTECTED

You asked what the public think about the campaign that Lilian has been running and the cost to the Community on last week's front page. I fully support Lilian's stand for the greater public interest.

IF our elected representatives stood up for the residents then her campaign for CLEAN AIR would not be necessary. Time after time we have seen that our councillors do not listen to the electorate , or look after our interests. I can name the parking in Rugby as one example amongst others in your paper recently.

RBC Chief Executive Officer and members of the Cabinet appear to have little respect for the electorate. If you dare question decisions they are not prepared to discuss or explain them, but would rather discredit those trying to work for the public good. Lilian has shown that we are NOT being protected from what will be an incinerator in the middle of a built up area. A visit to any search engine on the internet, to check on TYRE BURNING, will show world-wide concern on this matter - even when far away from built up areas.

The question of why a CO-INCINERATOR can burn anything from tyres to clinical waste, and needs less safeguards than an incinerator, is perhaps another point, but one that needs exploring.

When looking at the £50,000 cost of the campaign to the council, if letters sent to RBC were replied to, or the questions in them answered, not sidestepped, it would save a lot of time, effort and cost on all sides. Could anyone explain why four senior officers need to look at a request for information, and then need to spend another two or three hours answering it. Perhaps this shows that the officers in the council do not have the expertise to deal with this matter, but have not informed the councillors, who are not experts themselves.

Vaughan Owen
Marton