Lib Dems cut through complexity with explanatory paper that makes incinerator business easier to understand

11.04.32am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 4th Feb 2008

Anyone who has despaired of understanding the complexities of the highly controversial incinerator planned for Newhaven need despair no longer.

Lewes Liberal Democrats have brought out a four-page explanatory paper designed to make sense of the complex project for Newhaven's North Quay which it is vehemently opposing. The Conservative-controlled East Sussex County Council is pushing ahead with it, despite a decade of fierce opposition and the latest government advice saying there are better ways of dealing with rubbish than incineration.

Lewes District Council leader Ann De Vecchi said: "The whole incinerator business is a vital issue, but it's so difficult for people to understand, because it's played out on several different levels involving different permissions, different councils, and outside contractors. And every week we have a new development which people will want to understand, but it's practically impossible to follow events unless you've been wrapped up in them from the start.

"What we've done is taken the whole issue and put it into four pages of clear, user-friendly English, so people can get a sense of what's at stake, what the issues are, and why we are so furious about the way the county council is blindly pushing through a policy that will only make problems worse for the future."

The paper is a four-page pdf file that can be downloaded at http://www.leweslibdems.org.uk/resources/index/. It has colour illustrations, but can be printed in colour or black & white.

There has been massive opposition to the incinerator, not just in Newhaven and Seaford but also further across the district amid fears that exhaust fumes from it could affect air quality for miles around.