I THINK we are all entitled to know if the multi-million pound scale of the Salisbury nerve agent proposed clean-up is the product of hysteria, science or propaganda.

To that end, there ought be a full technical publication of the assessed need and the proposed process.

I cannot think of any reason for secrecy, whether for security or otherwise, so why would such information be kept from the taxpayer?

It would hardly benefit the Russians.

Take the park bench at the fourth or fifth location visited by the Skripals that day, where the residual nerve agent can never have been more than a trace: and which has since been flushed with 6 inches of snow melt, followed by days of torrential rain; yet the paving and the park lawns are to be excavated and incinerated, according to reports.

What can be the danger? Locals don’t eat the grass, nor are they likely to eat off the paving slabs, both already massively flushed by the weather in any case.

All this against assurances that there is no danger to the public.

There must be degrees by which some cleaning is required, but is this the Armageddon option, more for world consumption than for public safety?

How many more lives could be saved if much of this money was to be spent on Salisbury District Hospital?

Bernard Thornton

Fordingbridge