ANNABELLE Ewing's pep talk on "progress" at Mossmorran will disappoint many residents who have been forced to endure what she belittles as the "nuisance and worry" of prolonged bouts of emergency flaring.

For three years, residents via the Mossmorran Action Group have been asking for Ministers from Ms Ewing's Government to come to Central Fife to hear directly from those affected by the plant's operations, and for three years Ministers have refused.

Their excuse was that it could compromise work by SEPA.

Residents, the Mossmorran Action Group, Fife Council and cross-party MSPs have repeatedly asked the Scottish Government to commission an independent study into the environmental, health and social impacts of the plant since it opened in 1984.

Ms Ewing once put her name to a motion calling for this, but has since loyally accepted her Government's excuse that an independent study could compromise work by SEPA.

Ms Ewing says she is "pleased to say that SEPA very much want to engage with the community on what that [assurance to the local community] could look like." Good for her, and good for SEPA! The community's agenda has moved on considerably, however. It is no longer pacified by PR.

Ms Ewing has not been elected as SEPA's spokesperson but to represent the residents of the Cowdenbeath constituency.

Her job is to press their case - for a meeting and for a comprehensive study - to her colleagues in the Scottish Government with the utmost urgency.

JAMES GLEN,

Dreel House

Anstruther.