THE decision to go-ahead with a new tip at Scorton, near Richmond, was not unexpected. After all, the company seeking permission for the tip, Yorwaste, is largely owned by the local authority, North Yorkshire County Council, which made the decision.

Local people, many of whom attended the council's planning committee meeting on Tuesday, think the way the decision was made, on the casting vote of the chairman, stinks. It remains to be seen if the tip is similarly malodorous.

The problem lies back in 1993 when local government was required to divest itself of its waste management operations. Yorwaste was created as an "arms-length" supposedly independent entity, which of course it is not.

Not only is North Yorkshire County Council, along with the City of York authority, the owners of the company, its management team works closely with the authority's officers. The closeness even extends to the Yorwaste corporate branding which is remarkably similar to the county council's. It is manifestly wrong for the county to be in the position it find itself.

No wonder the villagers of Scorton, Bolton-on-Swale and Ellerton believe they have been effectively bypassed. They may have felt that as they had carried the burden of a large waste tip on their doorsteps for many years already, they might be spared another tip nearby, especially when an alternative was possible and suggested by a Government planning inspector.

Those villagers accept that nobody else wants a tip near their homes, but they might have expected their local authority to distribute the burden of dealing with our waste problem a little more equitably.