Lib Dems united in opposing Capel incinerator - Tories face both ways!

8.41.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 11th Jul 2008

County Councillor Hazel Watson and Capel District Councillor Iain Murdoch - Liberal Democrats speaking with one voice.

Conservative controlled Surrey County Council - including several Mole Valley representatives - has approved adoption of the Surrey Waste Plan which includes building a major incinerator near Capel. Liberal Democrat County Councillors maintained their consistent stand against the plan and once again argued for consideration of alternative waste disposal technologies which would be more environmentally friendly and avoid the health risks which are widely feared to flow from mass incineration.

On Mole Valley District Council, Liberal Democrats have taken exactly the same stand as their County colleagues and have voted to assist the protest group in Capel to challenge the incinerator proposal in the courts. Remarkably all of the Conservative District Councillors also voted to provide this assistance.

Liberal Democrat County Councillor Hazel Watson said "The farcical situation is that Tory District Councillors in Mole Valley have voted to use public money to fund a legal challenge to a decision made by their own Tory County Council colleagues when they should be settling their own internal arguments without using public money."