THE fire at Averies Recycling has now been burning for three weeks, its foul smoke blighting the lives of all who are unfortunate enough to live or work in the vicinity.

Elsewhere in the world huge forest fires covering thousands of acres have taken less time to extinguish, and so have terrifying blazes at fuel dumps and power stations.

It would be a hard-hearted person indeed who failed to sympathise with some of the long-suffering people mentioned in our story today.

There are, for example, the workers who are not allowed to open their windows during one of the hottest periods of the year. There are the companies who say they’re losing business or fear for the health of personnel toiling amid the nauseating stench.

There are the countless householders will always remember this summer as having been ruined. Those people are unable to work or rest comfortably in their gardens, and nor can they put out washing for fear that it will absorb the relentless reek.

The public have so far been broadly sympathetic toward the officials in charge of putting the fire out, but their patience is understandably running low.

The fire is clearly a serious one but is hardly of epic proportions. Are we seriously to believe that three weeks have passed without anybody being able simply to blanket the area with water or foam, collect the run-off without fouling the river and then send the bill for the entire operation to the relevant insurance company?

Urgency is demanded here, but evidence of urgency is conspicuous by its absence.