PROBLEMS at Castle Cement's Clitheroe works prompted a national crackdown on the burning of Cemfuel and similar materials in cement kilns, a government minister has revealed.

The failure of the Environment Agency to properly regulate the controversial process at the Ribblesdale works was highlighted by Michael Meacher as the reason for the new controls.

As the Evening Telegraph exclusively revealed on Wednesday, the Government imposed tight new controls on the burning of Secondary Liquid Fuels (SLFs).

These include tighter monitoring, more unannounced inspections and more prosecutions.

The moves by the Environment Agency were in response to a report by the House of Commons Environment Select Committee in the last Parliament. Now in a written commons answer Environmental Protection Minister Mr Meacher said the Government's response affirmed its commitment to the regulation of industry to prevent harm to human health and reduce impacts on the environment.

He said "The Select Committee made a number of trenchant criticisms of the Environment Agency's regulation of the cement industry.

"In particular, it found inadequacies in the Agency's public consultation procedures, lack of consistency in application of environmental standards and deficiencies in the regulation of Castle Cement's Clitheroe Works.

"The government is deeply concerned that the Committee should have felt it necessary to make such criticisms.

"The Environment Agency has accepted the Committee's criticism and responded to it positively with an extensive plan of action designed to bring about better public consultation, improve research and guidance and contribute to further studies of the health effects of pollutants."

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