The Westbury Lafarge Cement Plant has been sold, as part of a £7.4billion deal with Ireland’s CRH a building acquisitions corporation. So now we have to wait to see whether they will want Westbury or sell it on.

Lafarge is now off the hook regarding restoration of the plant and quarry, a sizeable amount of money to put right. Or is this the scenario: the plant will become part of another sale, eventually to a company who will asset-strip the buildings and kilns, declare bankruptcy and leave Westbury with an unrestored plant and dangerous quarry.

All of the reassurances now cannot be ratified because this sell-off is the subject of supply and demand and nobody wants to inherit a plant that is antiquated and a drain on resources.

I personally blame Wiltshire County Council for swallowing the mothballed status from Lafarge some six years ago, without an endgame package from Lafarge to restore the plant and quarry. Now we have no stability of tenure and the residents of Wiltshire could pick up the costs. We will see.

David Levy, The Air That We Breathe Network.