Waste contract no surprise

The news that the contract for Shropshire's waste recycling is to be awarded to French company Veolia for 27 years comes as no surprise.

The Orwellian news-speak description of its proposed rubbish incinerator at Harlescott as an "energy recovery facility" is a good laugh.

Nearly all our utilities and infrastructure are now in the hands of continental European companies, who have often received illegal support and tax breaks from their governments, as in the case of the BAA takeover by a Spanish company.

If we try buying into European public infrastructure mysterious barriers are put in our way so it simply does not happen, such is the "level playing field" that the EU offers us.

There seems to be a common purpose at work in the way these things are moving.

I just hope that the rate-payers of Shropshire get as good a deal as the people who awarded this contract and rather better than customers of Veolia Water UK plc, who paid out £256 million last year, of which Veolia trousered 70p in the pound or £179 million in profits.

Interesting that John Selwyn Gummer, Europhile Conservative politician and supporter of EU privatisation, is on its board drinking the gravy.

Until this country leaves the EU and returns to self government and proper parliamentary democracy things can only get worse. Keep voting Lib/Lab/Con and they will!

Jonathan C Carr, UKIP North Shropshire