I can find no point of disagreement with the hon. Gentleman. Furthermore, incineration works on the principle of maximising contracts. We have seen in other parts of the country minimum standards and minimum amounts imposed on contracting local authorities. If they fail to meet those targets for waste—as I believed happened in Cleveland—they suffer financial penalties.

The existence of an incinerator multiplies traffic movements, and therein lies one of the strongest arguments against incineration as a major way forward in waste disposal. The inspector's report on the site of Rivenhall did not give the go-ahead, but stipulated as a caveat that there should be an assessment of the highway and traffic consequences of siting such an installation at Rivenhall.

It is not possible for me to state how many additional traffic movements would be created by such an installation at Rivenhall, but it has been estimated that as many as 50 heavy lorry movements per day would bring waste to the site. Those lorries would come along the unreconstructed section of the Al20—not the part that is proposed to become a dual carriageway, which runs west of Braintree, but the part that runs east of Braintree towards Colchester, which is a two-way highway already overburdened with traffic. The lorries would run through the village of Bradwell, which is already under pressure from continual flows of traffic, way in excess of the capacity originally envisaged for that stretch of road.

Because Rivenhall is described as an airport, one might imagine that it is an industrial site—indeed, it is ludicrously called a brownfield site. In fact, it is one of many airfields constructed throughout East Anglia during the second world war—many in my constituency—from which our pilots and our allies in the United States air force flew during the liberation of Europe. There were airfields at Earls Colne, Wethersfield, Andrews field at Saling and Rivenhall—all in my constituency. Only this morning, I was speaking to a close friend and constituent of mine, John Alston of Coggeshall, who remembers being on the airfield when thousands of service personnel were being entertained by Glen Miller and Bob Hope. That is the origin of the categorisation of Rivenhall as an industrial site, but it is fair to say that the residents of Rivenhall are not "In the Mood" to have a major incinerator on the site. To the naked eye, Rivenhall today is pastoral—it is farmland and woods crossed by pathways and quiet country lanes. Were a major waste disposal installation to be put there, those lanes would thunder with the sound of lorries carrying waste to the site.

As the hon. Member for Colchester says, a further problem is the importation of waste from London and Kent in particular. Each year, there are many thousands of vehicle movements from London and Kent bringing waste into the county of Essex. In one form or another, the importation of waste into Essex has been going on since Roman times. London has always tried to dump its surplus waste in our county, but if there is one thing that will act like a lamp to a moth, it will be large-scale waste disposal sites dotted across Essex.