The Editor
The Chester Chronicle
91 High Street
Connah’s Quay
Deeside.

Dear Sir,

During the past four weeks or so, Castle Cement’s Tony Allen has been continually carping on about CANK allegedly disassociating itself from the work and public pronouncements of Dr Dick van Steenis.  Dr van Steenis being a retired MD from South Wales who has some strong opinions about Dioxins, Furans, Particulate Matter, Industrial Activities and their potentially damaging effects upon animal and human health.  Opinions which he represented vigorously and colourfully at our public meeting at the Beaufort Place Hotel on 30th November 1999, when he was one of four very able speakers.

The reality is that on 2nd February 2000, in the County Council Planning Committee’s deliberations, Councillor Ken Iball, of the group who supported Castle Cement’s Planning Application, rose on a point of order.

He objected to comments that he attributed to Dr van Steenis, along the lines that any councillor who voted for the application should be prosecuted.

CANK’s spokesperson in the chamber quite properly and fairly dissociated CANK from that alleged remark.  For Tony Allen to make more of it than that displays the weakness of his own stance.  Why does he so carefully avoid any reference to the greater weight of evidence, upon the health aspects of the application, provided for CANK by Dr Vyvyan Howard, who is a qualified Toxicologist which the much quoted Dr R. J. Roberts is not?  And, what are we to make of Dr Roberts’ none availability in the discussion chamber, which certainly saved him from those councillors who wished to ask questions of him?

As an organisation CANK is vibrant and growing steadily day by day.  We are serious in our purpose.  We are determined and we do not intend to go away.  Nor do we intend to forget, nor deny our many friends and supporters.  It was in the public interest that CANK generated legal and technical input and set about raising awareness and generating debate.

That it was not enough on the day was no great surprise.  I was told as far back as February 1999, by County Councillors with whom I had already clashed over this planning application, that it would be approved at County level.

Those who made such assertions and those whose votes on the day denied the proper representations of the clear will of the community need to reflect upon their actions,    because over 22,000 people have now sent an unambiguous message to the National Assembly for Wales - and to certain county councillors also!

Much is owed to the many groups who worked alongside CANK.  To PANTS, to Friends of the Earth, CPRW and TCC to name just a few.  Also to the numerous individuals who got active, got out and about and got things done.  John Ellis, Irene Jones, Shelley Booth, Gordon Vickers and a host of others from near and afar.  You all contributed magnificently to the common cause.

If CANK’s activities helped just a little even, then every member can take pride in that.
What we cannot do is to become complacent.  The formal notice setting up the public inquiry that so many people have called for has yet to appear.  When it does, much work will remain to be done, extending perhaps over the next eighteen months.

However, if the community is resolute, well informed and united, then we can win.  We will win, because ultimate power lies in the hands of the voters - and nobody should forget that.

Yours faithfully
 
 
 

Arnold Woolley (Cllr)
Chairman CANK.