Letter: Do we need all that oil, or do we only want to waste it?

From Mr Alan Ackroyd

Sir: It has always been just a matter of time before a pollution disaster should strike the import of crude oil through the sensitive ecological area of the South Wales coast to Milford Haven.

With the changing pattern of oil extraction in the North Sea and the occasional availability of surplus equipment, rather than holding storage buoys in Norwegian fiords, would it not be better to moor one in the Irish Sea at the end of a pipeline to the Milford Haven refinery? The inevitable spills would then be well out to sea and could be dealt with before they reach sensitive beaches. Unwieldy tankers could stay in deep water where they belong. Yours faithfully,

Alan Ackroyd

Haverill, Suffolk