SO the sorry saga of trying to impose water fluoridation in Southampton is set to continue (Fluoride court battle looms, Daily Echo, January 10).

For Public Health England to continue to argue that a scheme exists is not only wrong, but flies in the face of this Government’s policy that purports to give councils and local communities more power over local decisions.

Just last January, Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Health, and Duncan Selbie, the chief executive of Public Health England (PHE), wrote to all councils stating: “You are best placed to understand the needs of your community. In fact, the role of Public Health England is to help support local councils, not to challenge them in court”.

It is now nearly seven years since plans to add fluoride to local water supplies were first developed by the Strategic Health Authority.

They failed to come up with a workable scheme before they were abolished, despite spending thousands on it.

The Government and PHE need to honour not just the letter of the law and accept that no scheme exists, a fact that is obvious to most people, but also the spirit of their policies to support local decision-making.

PROF STEPHEN PECKHAM, Highfield, Southampton.