YP Letters: Why do we turn back on green energy?

SCOTTISH Renewable policy director, Jenny Hogan, says that the UK Government is refusing to allow onshore wind and solar energy to bid against fossil fuel companies for long-term contracts to supply electricity.

Onshore wind and solar are the two cheapest forms of green electricity. To refuse access to these contracts will result in a marked slowdown in investment and a decrease in employment. Renewable energy reduces greenhouse gases causing climate change.

Why, then, is our Government turning its back on renewable energy and pushing fracking on the British people when they have clearly voted in district and county councils that they do dot want this unsafe, untested industry?

We have elected political representatives that are not representing the majority of the people in this country and most definitely not in Yorkshire, where it seems the whole of the county is to become a gas field, in which the people of Yorkshire are expected to live.

Tens of thousands of wells are to be drilled, with no social licence over pristine countryside. Reports coming out of other countries show that the toxic cocktail of water and chemicals injected at high pressure contaminates the water, air and land, with disastrous results on the health of animals, humans and crops, not to mention tourism.

Australia has now decided to ban it. Scotland and Wales have a moratorium, I believe.

Station plan falls short

From: Shaun Kavanagh, Leeds.

READING Tom Richmond’s recent report on the proposed station near Leeds Bradford Airport (The Yorkshire Post, March 4), it is absolutely right for Greg Mulholland MP to challenge Leeds City Council (LCC) chief executive Tom Riordan.

LCC admits it will fall short of actually taking passengers to the terminal building, thereby requiring passengers to alight the train to continue their journey on another vehicle. In reality a rail link which is only a part link will be farcical.

Not only will it cost millions, it will likely create mayhem in the process and probably ruin the lives of those who will suffer from the council’s compulsory purchasing of properties along the route in order to facilitate the rail link.

Furthermore, LCC’s city development director, Martin Farrington, states some of Mr Mulholland’s 14 questions cannot be answered until Government cash is in the council’s bank, how can that be?

Martin Farrington’s inability to provide the answers typifies the continual failings of LCC by whichever department is involved.

To consider the provision of a rail link is, in itself, good but not the recently published proposed link which falls short of the requirements of travellers to the airport.

The proposed rail link will not provide a 100 per cent service and will be as useful as a chocolate fireguard.

Labour claim simply absurd

From: Alan Thompson, Bramhope, Leeds.

CAN I enlighten Baroness Shami Chakrabarti as to why Labour was ousted in the Copeland by-election? Her assumption that only Tory voters own cars, while Labour voters rely on public transport, is absurd.

I’ve voted Labour in the past and I owned a car, as I do now when I don’t vote Labour.

The reason I no longer vote Labour is because the party has become filled with people such as her; the likes of Emily Thornberry who sneer at the flag of St George and ‘white van men’, as if their very existence were proof of bigotry and racism, and people like Diane Abbott, who advocates state education while sending her child to private school.

The Labour Party is finished if it stays on its current course – not just in Copeland, but nationwide. It no longer represents the people it was created to represent.

Nowadays, it despises those people. That’s why it lost Copeland, not because they can’t afford cars.

Wage hikes no solution

From: H Marjorie Gill, Clarence Drive, Menston.

JAYNE Dowle thinks that it would be a simple matter to increase the wages of employees to make sure that they have a better standard of living (The Yorkshire Post, March 6).

If it were so simple, every factory owner would be pleased to do that.

However, labour costs make up a goodly part of the price the factory owner has to charge for his goods.

She knows as well as anybody else that Britain must export or die.

The factory owner is trying to compete with competitors who do not have to pay a living wage, so unless the employees can become more efficient, they will go out of business and the jobs will vanish.

Art soothes restless teens

From: Hilary Andrews, Nursery Lane, Leeds.

MANY things are said about the awful behaviour of our young people. I went to see the Yorkshire Playhouse in-house production of Romeo and Juliet last night.

The house was full of young teenagers who sat silent and enthralled at the production where the cast was mostly of their age group and who interpreted the play in an unusual but enchanting way.

They were fully engrossed, 
not a sign of a phone, no chattering.

Perhaps more should be done to further this age group’s interest in the arts.