SIR: We would like to offer Fred Dibnah a bit of advice.

He should forget the loves of his life, steam engines and old industrial artefacts, and instead build a new waste incinerator in his garden.

In Bolton (and Oldham too for that matter) you can build an incinerator without planning permission. That would not only relieve Fred's blood pressure in his arguments with Bolton's planners, but he could also make a bit of money by helping the Council get rid of their rubbish mountain.

Only one proviso - according to the Council's Environmental Policy statement they only give their wholehearted approval to energy-from-waste incineration, so Fred would have to couple it up to his central heating system.

Dennis Watson (For Bolton Friends of the Earth)

Millgate, Egerton

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.