AFTER years of dispute over its alleged threat to health, campaigners were today celebrating over the burning of chemical-waste Cemfuel coming to a stop at the giant Castle Cement plant in the Ribble Valley as new European laws forced tighter conditions on the company.

But while this move brings a breath of fresh air to a row that has gone on since the firm began burning the controversial fuel at Clitheroe in 1992, a cloud still hangs over the issue -- that of the still-to-be-met need to determine once and for all whether Cemfuel is safe or harmful.

The company says it will apply to the Environment Agency to restart burning it once it has installed new monitoring equipment required by the European directive. Yet if this indicates that it may only be a case of when, rather than if, Cemfuel is burned again at the plant, must it mean that yet more years of concern, controversy and expense are to follow?

Ribble Valley residents deserve cast-iron proof that Cemfuel does absolutely no harm to people's health or to the environment. And if that is the case, so, too, is the firm entitled to endorsement of its view that this fuel is safe. If not, it goes without saying that it should be banned.

Ribble Valley MP Nigel Evans wants this respite to be used to find out what the real effect is of burning Cemfuel -- by the company using conventional fuels in its kilns for a long period so that the contrast provides further information on the possible environmental impact of Cemfuel.

Such a step may be beneficial, but protesters against Cemfuel, residents and the company are surely now owed total efforts to solve this dispute. And since people living near Castle's plant at Padewood in North Wales have been granted a full public inquiry into their concerns, it would seem that the best way of finally resolving the controversy at Clitheroe would be for one to be held there too.

Why not? After all this time, it is surely time to clear the air for good -- with the scientific truth.