YP Letters: Weak rules have allowed fracking in North Yorkshire

ENVIRONMENT Agency approval of Third Energy fracking plans highlights weak regulation. Your report ‘Fracking gets closer as plan is approved by regulator’(The Yorkshire Post, October 11) is far from reassuring.

The permission granted is based on a “thorough assessment” by the Environment Agency. What your readers need to know is that the assessment is restricted to the operation of the site rather than the wider operation of the Third Energy system affected by the proposed five frack tests.

The clue to what is misleading about Third Energy’s Plan and the EA assessment is the remarkable fact that there will be no need to flare the gas produced by the tests at Kirby Misperton.

From: David Cragg-James, Stonegrave, York.

IT’S really very simple: Gold standard regulations will, we are assured, protect us from (some of) the worst consequences of fracking.

These regulations include a traffic management plan covering inter alia approved routes for deliveries to the site. “North Yorkshire Police may require Third Energy to use an alternative access route” should the approved route be disrupted.

This seems to happen daily and yet when questioned North Yorkshire Police, the County Council and Third Energy are all individually clear that one of the other two bodies is responsible for non-approved routes.

From: Neil Richardson, Kirkheaton.

AN energy revolution without cost? When the biomass power station Drax (The Yorkshire Post, October 11) delivers ‘carbon savings of 68 per cent’ compared with gas, does this figure allow for processing and transport not only within the United States but also across the wide Atlantic and in the UK?

I’m surprised your feature did not briefly tabulate the carbon savings and power of biomass alongside both gas and coal. Why miss this opportunity to promote a remarkably healthy future?

Closures add to A&E pressure

From: Mr Robin Small, Nethergate, Nafferton, Near Driffield.

RE your excellent Editorial ‘A Critical issue’ (The Yorkshire Post, October 12). The increase in the pressure on Accident and Emergency Units is hardly surprising given the lack of joined-up thinking by NHS management.

Here in the East Riding, minor injury units are under threat of closure putting more strain on A&E units at Scarborough, Hull and York. Minor injury units are vital to our rural communities where distance and transport cost are real issues.

Keeping them open and resourced would help alleviate the problem.

City needs tram system

From: Tim Mickleburgh, Boulevard Avenue, Grimsby.

I USED to commute by train from Hebden Bridge to Leeds in the late 1980s and I have been disappointed that while the likes of Manchester and Sheffield managed to get their own tramway systems, nothing was ever provided for Leeds.

For if you want to get passengers out of their cars, you need some kind of light rail system to do so.

Service buses just aren’t good enough, as their continual stopping and starting makes journey times too slow for those going to work.

Mind you, if we in the North had the same level of investment as London, I’m sure many cities and towns here would have had modern trams by now.

Sad demise of Christianity

From: Canon Michael Storey, Healey Wood Road, Brighouse.

I HAVE been retired for 11 years and so take few funerals these days.

Last week I did take one, of a Christian friend, in Huddersfield Crematorium.

I had a chat with the gentleman on duty at the crematorium regarding the proportion of Christian funerals.

On the day in question, only one out of eight was being taken by a Christian minister – myself; the following day, only two out of eight.

In a recent survey, only 53 per cent of the population believes in God, prisons are full to overcrowding, more than 50 per cent of children are born out of wedlock and Social Services are hardly able to cope with demand.

I am thinking that all these statistics are linked. What was once a country led by Christian ethics seems to have gone off its Christian rails. One fears for the future. Bring back God and Christian values.

Innit a shame words change?

From: Mrs M Whitaker, Harswell.

THE purists’ annoyance at the word “Innit” will soon be forgotten.

Contraction and elision have been useful in the development of languages over centuries.

“Goodbye” was once “God be with you”, and we are all familiar with the oath “By Our Lady!” now reduced to one word.

The expletives “Zounds!” and “Cripes!” referred to the wounds and stripes of Christ. We all enjoyed the “Che?” of a puzzled Manuel, where we might say “eh?”; similarly the Scottish “Uh-huh” expressed in various meaningful tones denotes assent.

From: James Robson, Kirbymoorside.

ALTHOUGH I am not a fan of any of the leftie presenters of Channel 4, I feel I must congratulate the venerable Jon Snow on his pronunciation of the word ‘Bombardier’ after days of suffering the Frenchified ‘Bombard-ee-aa’ from his colleagues.

Mr Snow’s plain English rendering came like a breath of fresh air.