IT IS high time we all grew up.

Across Europe (and, yes, the UK is a part of Europe) we waste £500 billion of heat a year, pouring it out of cooling towers like those at Ferrybridge or wasting it in homes and businesses.

At the same time we import around £400 billion of energy from outside the EU, filling the coffers of Russia, Turkmenistan, Iraq and other exemplars of stability and democracy.

And yet the technology exists to cut this waste, save money and improve our energy security. I recently interviewed the manager of an old people’s home in Frankfurt where they save £45,000 a year by using a combined heat and power plant.

As a Lib Dem city councillor, I was suspended for whistle-blowing on my administration’s madcap plan to waste a billion pounds of heat over 20 years by building an incinerator in the middle of nowhere.

The state of our economy and public services, and our profligate waste of resources, are linked. Ensuring that all power stations and all major industries, schools, hospitals, and government buildings stopped wasting heat would save billions.

If we go on wasting money and resources this nation will sink. Blaming the euro might feel like a great excuse, but that is all it will be.

Christian Vassie, Blake Court, Wheldrake, York.