YP Letters: No hidden agenda in battle to stop fracking

THERE is no hidden agenda from the opponents of fracking (Matt Ridley, The Yorkshire Post, March 11). There are now thousands, and rising, of ordinary people who are very well informed about this toxic, dirty and ugly industry.

We are not “a tiny group of middle-class Southerners” – I am a Yorkshirewoman who once lived in the highly polluted area now known as Teesside.

I now live in the beautiful area of Ryedale where Third Energy are trying to start the industrialisation of our land with hundreds of fracking sites.

Matt Ridley talks about using sand and water making millimetre cracks with minimal environmental risks.

He does not mention the amounts of water needed for one frack – the same amount as two Olympic swimming pools.

He omits to say that chemicals are also used in the fracking process and that fracking pipes are very much wider.

A rig is around 37 metres high.

He dismisses renewables, yet only recently ,a new hydro-electric-power plant was opened on the river Calder.

The technology of renewables is constantly improving, as can be seen in Europian countries. Viscount Ridley is a leading light in the climate change denial movement.