Sue Paylor (Letters, April 30) is quite right to emphasise the importance of the second stage of the Nightingale Hall Farm inquiry. The public response at the first stage was magnificent. Residents from Freehold the Ridge and many other parts of the city showed just how widespread is concern about the smell. If the inspector takes note of that testimony it is a powerful argument for confirming the "no smell beyond the process boundary" condition that the city council has imposed. The argument that Fats and Proteins put forward, that concern was whipped up by a politically motivated minority, was shown up as arrant nonsense.

The second condition is equally important. The city council wants the right to be notified and approve changes of fuel and to monitor the resulting flue gases to see that it has been burnt properly. The city council could not invoke such a condition arbitrarily. In the case of tallow we know there are substantial reductions in emissions of volatile organic compounds, dioxins and more modest reductions in oxides of nitrogen and sulphur compared with the burning of fuel oil. Despite her assertion, there is no evidence of BSE infectivity in tallow and a top scientific committee, the Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens, recommends that no special precautions are needed in handling it. This is not a case where the Council could use the condition.

However, the other fuels she mentions, meat and bonemeal, chemical waste, old tyres and the like, are a very different matter. That is why it is important the council succeeds here too.

Cllr Ian Barker

Deputy leader

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