§ 2.54 p.m.
§ VISCOUNT LONGMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have received an application from the cement works at Westbury, Wiltshire, to bore for their own waterwells; and what action Her Majesty's Government propose regarding this proposal.]
§ THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES (LORD MITCHISON)My Lords, my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government has received an application from the Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers for a licence to sink two boreholes on their land and abstract an average of 170,000 gallons of water daily. This has now been supplemented by an application for his consent to the making of trial boreholes and the carrying out of test pumping to estab- 120 lish experimentally the yield obtainable and the effect on other sources in the neighbourhood. My right honourable friend has received a number of objections to the main scheme, and he proposes to arrange for a public local inquiry to take place as soon as the results of any test pumping to which he may consent are available.
§ VISCOUNT LONGMy Lords, I am indeed grateful to the noble Lord for his reply, and I am sure that what his right honourable friend said in another place will give great satisfaction to people locally, since they have been suffering a serious shortage of water for some miles around during the past few weeks. I hope that this court of inquiry will sift the whole of the evidence. I thank the noble Lord.