A HAMPSHIRE politician is promising to press European Union bureaucrats over a ruling that could ban a company making a natural product for dealing with pond algae.

As previously reported by the Daily Echo, Winchester-based company Green Ways could soon find its innovative and environmentally friendly algae treatment illegal.

The technique uses mats made of barley straw which are then dropped into ponds where the reaction between the water and the barley kills off the oxygen-depriving algae.

However, although the method has been used for centuries, because Green Ways can't say exactly what chemical reaction causes the effects, the EU could ban it.

The company would either have to stump up as much as £120,000 to have its product tested for the reaction, or shut up shop.

Now Hampshire MEP Chris Huhne is promising to press EU policy chiefs into telling him whether the looming directive, called the EU Directive on Biocidal Products, actually applies to barley straw.

He said: "I can't believe the European Commission intended to stop natural products like barley straw, but that is what the UK Health and Safety Executive is now saying. It is not a happy situation if garden companies have either to stop production or pay vast amounts to have the product tested for its active ingredients."

His parliamentary question, asking for clarification on whether the British government is right to interpret the directive in this way, has been tabled as a priority issue, which means that the commission has a month to answer.