YP Letters: Fracking will not alleviate fuel poverty

THE letter from David Downs “Fracking is vital to meet energy needs” (The Yorkshire Post, December 2) shows an astonishing ignorance about about what fracking is all about.

This industry has confirmed that fracking will not lower fuel prices, and that shale is a decade away and will not tackle fuel povery now. At the moment, there are few conventional gas and oil wells in Yorkshire, but gas extraction would require thousands of wells in order to be viable. Imagine that? Fracking rigs are 37 metres high and operate 24/7. Hardly discreet.

Our beautiful countyside is the lungs and back yard which benefit everyone.

From: Frank Colenso, Pasture Lane, Hovingham.

IN reply to Mr Downs suggesting that “ fracking will be no more intrusive that existing oil and gas wells”, let the numbers talk.

There have been 2,100 on-shore oil and gas wells drilled in the UK over the past 60 years. There are 178 licences today, eight are producing gas.

The estimated number of fracking wells required for the UK over the next 20 years, 18,000 - 20,000.

Closer to home in Ryedale, there have been seven conventional wells – two are producing today. The estimated number of fracking wells over the next 20 years is 2,000! It is not the one well that people object to, it is the sheer number required to make the industry viable. The level of industrialisation will simply replace jobs in our tourism, food, farming and horse racing industries.

A missed opportunity

From: Harun Khan, Muslim Council of Britain.

ANY initiative that facilitates better integration of all Britons should be welcomed, and we certainly endorse the few, fair and supportable suggestions proposed by the Casey Review (The Yorkshire Post, December 6).

This includes the promotion of the English language, sharing of best practice across the nation and a range of measures to tackle exclusion, inequality and segregation in school placements. And while we agree that forced marriages, FGM, honour-based killings and other practices have no place in modern Britain, we would argue that our faith tradition can be deployed to tackle what are essentially cultural practices.

I hope we can facilitate robust and active conversations in British Muslim communities where we are frank about the challenges facing us and creative enough to meet them head-on.

Sadly, however, I fear that this report could be a missed opportunity. We need to improve integration, and it needs to involve the active participation of all Britons, not just Muslims.

As former Prime Minister David Cameron has stated, ‘integration is a two-way street’. The report has little discussion on white flight, and could have delved deeper into the economic structural barriers to integration.

Stubborn to a fault

From: Hilary Andrews, Nursery Lane, Leeds.

WE in Yorkshire always resist anyone telling us what to do but George Osborne (The Yorkshire Post, December 2) has made it quite clear that, unless the whole of Yorkshire stops bickering, we will not be given the money we need to expand our part of the Northern Powerhouse.

Can we really afford to be so stubborn and let Lancashire streak ahead of us? We must get our act together and quickly.

From: Robert Craig, Priory Road, Weston-super-Mare.

THE way for English-England, i.e., north of the Wash, to redress the wealth imbalance is to have its own parliament in Leeds (Tom Richmond, The Yorkshire Post, December 3).

Dealing with death

From: Dr Richard Vautrey, Leeds GP and BMA GP committee deputy chair, British Medical Association.

DOCTORS in Yorkshire and across the UK must be given more support by their employers when caring for dying patients, as a new BMA survey reveals that fewer than one in five doctors feel they get sufficient help.

Although doctors are professionally trained to deal with death, the emotional toll from caring for patients at the end of their life should not be under-estimated. The BMA wants the use of support services to become normal practice across the NHS, to ensure doctors are able to cope emotionally and can provide the best possible care for patients and their relatives when they are at their most vulnerable.

As doctors we are very aware that a patient’s last moments stay with the relatives and loved ones for the rest of their lives, so it is vital we have the support, time and training to get it right.

Most did not vote to leave

From: David Seex, Carlton Miniott, Thirsk.

KEITH Alford (The Yorkshire Post, December 2) is right to suggest our MPs should vote against triggering Article 50, and stand up not only for the best economic future of these islands but perhaps more importantly for the 63 per cent of the electorate that did not vote ‘leave’.

The Brexiteers claim that the 52 per cent vote to leave the EU represents a clear mandate for “Brexit”; yet while 17 million did vote to leave, 16 million voted ‘remain’ and 13 million did not vote at all. It is not unreasonable to assume that the majority of those 13 million, while not being strongly in favour of the EU, were broadly happy with the status quo. The views of the 17 million ‘leavers’ hardly trump those of the remaining 29 million, and it is time for ‘Remain’ MPs to stand up for the majority.