Is it any wonder people in Newhaven, Seaford and the other Ouse Valley villages are getting more and more angry about East Sussex County Council's (ESCC) and Brighton and Hove City Council's waste plan?

More than 8,000 objections to the latest stage were sent earlier this year, adding to the tens of thousands received at earlier stages of the planning process.

These letters of objection covered issues such as higher recycling targets, concentrating traffic on one site in Newhaven and ignoring recent changes in legislation, as well as repeating their principled opposition to incineration itself.

Yet what has happened?

First Brighton and Hove's policy committee ignored all this opposition last week and now ESCC's cabinet has followed suit.

Both councils have agreed to "make no further material modifications" to the plan and to press ahead with adopting it.

Liberal Democrats on ESCC will argue, once more, against the waste plan at the full council meeting on December 6 and there may well be other county councillors who wish to join us in doing so.

But if the Conservative majority pushes it through, my advice to local residents will be to write quickly to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott asking him to call time on the plan.

There will only be a short period during which this can happen and the councils have cleverly timed that to be during the Christmas and New Year holidays.

-David O Rogers, leader of the opposition, East Sussex County Council