Tony Maskell, Newton Close, Newton Ferrers, writes: Following your front page report about objections to the proposed filling-in of the former Steer Point brickworks quarry, I believe it would be far more valuable to its owner, the local community and the nation if it were, instead, filled with seawater and used as a nursery for sedentary filter-feeders like oysters, mussels, cockles and clams. The Yealm estuary has probably the most fertile seawater in the UK, which was why I moved to Steer Point in 1967 to create what was, briefly, Europe's best commercial oyster hatchery which, in 1974, was poisoned out of business by the initially secret use of TBT, tri-butyl tin, in yacht antifouling paint which is lethal to oyster larvae at one part in ten thousand million parts of water. A similar flooded quarry gives Guernsey Sea Farms a huge advantage over its competition and, if repeated here, could create a dozen or so interesting, productive, long-term local jobs, now that the Yealm is clean again since the International Maritime Organisation, a branch of the United Nations, took 30 years to ban TBT on all but military vessels. So, for the local community, it is not just the ten years of exceptionally heavy traffic ruining everyone's peace of mind. Nor is it just the nature of the waste that could get dumped there, when no one is looking. We all know what the waste industry sometimes tries to get away with, especially when supervision is poor and how hard it is to re-load a lorry once it has tipped its load. We also know the Devon County Council is looking for somewhere to tip the ash from the new Devonport incinerator, so we could all get poisoned by nano-particles of burned plastic, having only just warded-off the proposed Viridor incinerator at New England Quarry, near Yealmpton. And, who knows? After permission is granted, Viridor might buy the Kitley Estate and do whatever it likes because every Viridor unit is a separate company which can easily go into liquidation rather than pay a fine for environmental infringement, without the bill having to be met by the whole group. Another cause for concern is the possibility that a lot of the waste that might be dumped here is likely to have come from the proposed Sherford New Town, from which the run-off of raw cement would be an enormous threat to the local fresh and sea water environments. So, surplus raw concrete and mortar might also get dumped here. And since the Brixton district councillor is alleged to stand to benefit financially from that development, may be the Brixton people are not getting the representation they deserve. The applicant's local agent is Aarvark from Taunton and the applicant is not Michael Bastard or the Kitley Estate, but the 'Josephine Ernestine Discretionary Settlement' a possibly non-existent body c/o some solicitor's office in north Oxford, when Kitley usually uses Bond Pearce and Co. So, I am very glad that Michael Bastard has, at least, come-out from under the skirts of his cover company.