Fracking fight

Mr Dewar referred to the Unpacking Fracking meeting in Malton. He stated that “some of the audience had been bus-loaded in from Lancashire, there were 250 in the audience, the majority were antis, they were vociferous, gave me a hard time; they’re not the people we have to win the hearts and minds over”.

He then went on to state that, “once we do this job..., we can start to win over not only the locals who are on our side, but even the protestors, who will then look for something else to protest about”.

This disingenuous comment is disrespectful to many Ryedale residents who are not “protestors looking for a cause” but local people who hold very real concerns about proposals to carry out extensive fracking in the area.

Mr Dewar speculated that there would be up to 19 sites, each with between 10 and 50 wells per site. Each well would then be fracked at five different vertical levels.

Throughout First Energy’s public engagement, reassurance has been based on how little impact the exploratory site at Kirby Misperton has had to date. The elephant in the room is not the prospect of one well, but potentially several hundred wells across 19 sites, each between one and 25 hectares in area.

The scale of the proposed fracking footprint is therefore vastly greater than many local people will be aware. Each well requires 24/7 drilling thus for a large site of up to 50 wells, the local impact of drilling alone will be sustained and likely measured in years, not months.

In addition, each well will not simply be fracked once, but will require repeated fracking every three years or so in order to maintain gas flow. The increase in scale is akin to reassuring the public that since Wombleton airfield can be shown to have little impact, they should be unconcerned at plans to build a second Heathrow locally.

Bruce Nelson, Nunnington

• WE’RE all aware that John Dewar heads up Third Energy plc, which is in the process of allying itself with Halliburton Corporation to facilitate its fracking plans in Ryedale.

At last week’s meeting of the Commons Select Committee, chaired by our sitting MP Anne McIntosh, he conveyed the view that anti-fracking people were “bussed in” from Lancashire to Ryedale council’s full-to-capacity public consultation in Malton on February 4.

But it is indisputable that this meeting was strictly by council-organised invitation and ticket. Applicants needed to tick a box saying whether they were residents and to give authentication. These bona-fide residents were overwhelmingly against fracking, and though it may be unkind to say this, the panel of speakers invited by the council completely demolished what Mr Dewar had to say on factual grounds.

Sadly, much of what Mr Dewar says can be unpicked in this way, including his sleight of hand in only speaking about one well at Kirby Misperton, when the Select Committee elicited from him an admission that he envisages between 500 and 950 fracking wells in Ryedale.

As for his further assertion that those of us opposed to fracking in this lovely area of North Yorkshire will simply “go away and find something else to protest about”, we aren’t going anywhere, because we live here. But you are. Should you manage to industrialise our landscape, you’ll be off, leaving farmers with major contamination and liability issues for which they can’t be indemnified, and the rest of us with impossible water and insurance problems. In the mean time, you’ll have to put up with local democracy being inconvenient.

Robert Field, Gilling East

• RYEDALE District Council organised a meeting called Unpacking Fracking at the Milton Rooms in the middle of February, which I was unable to attend.

Some days later I went to the Third Energy meeting at Kirby Misperton where the company explained what it would be doing at the village well site and how it would be managed.

To try to balance the argument, I attended a meeting in Hovingham Village Hall recently organised by the Frack Free Ryedale group to find out its views about the dangers to our community should fracking take place in our area.

I was genuinely alarmed by the information I saw and heard on the video that was shown.

There are two sides to the fracking debate. If only half the numbers suggested by Frack Free Ryedale on vehicle movements, the amount of water needed and the length of time the drilling operation would take to make the project viable are to be believed, then we would be converting our beautiful landscape into a huge industrial area for ever.

Third Energy presents a “best case scenario”, which, if true, paints a rosy picture. However, should planning permission be granted for fracking, it is the thin end of the wedge and there would be no stopping further expansion of areas used, vehicle movements and hours that drilling and fracking would be allowed.

Residents of Hovingham and surrounding villages please take every opportunity you can to find out about fracking, whether on the internet or attending a local meeting. Do not believe that it would not have a massive impact on your life or that of future generations. You like me could find yourself shocked at the irreparable damage that would happen to our idyllic life in the heart of Ryedale should fracking take place.

Robert Wainwright, Ryedale district councillor, Hovingham

• IT is no surprise that the public are angry over Ryedale District Council’s decision not to place a ban on fracking in Ryedale, just as it wasn’t when they voted to sell off Wentworth street car park and the Ryedale Indoor Bowling Club.

However angry the public feel about these decisions, they must remember that these councillors are democratically-elected people, well some of them are. There are currently eight members of Ryedale District Council out of 30 from 2011 elected unopposed, six of them on the ruling Tory group and two Independent, so in essence if the public do not like the decisions made on their when they voted to sell Wentworth street car park and the Ryedale Indoor Bowling Club.

However angry the public feel about these decisions, they must remember that these councillors are democratically-elected people, well some of them are. There are currently eight members of Ryedale District Council out of 30 from 2011 elected unopposed, six of them on the ruling Tory group and two Independent, so in essence if the public do not like the decisions made on their behalf they should do something about it.

It wouldn’t be so bad if these decisions had been taken with the opinions of ward members in mind, but when was the last time any of our councillors, with the odd exception, visited us to ask what we want – let me guess, election time 2011?

All of Ryedale’s council wards are up for election on May 7, so the public has a duty to vote for a candidate who will represent the people they are elected to serve, and the parties of all colours and persuasions must ensure that every seat is contested. It is wrong that eight of these councillors are elected unopposed. What message does that send out to young voters and those already disillusioned with politics in general?

May 7 also sees the most important General Election in decades, so for the sake of democracy, and for your rights, get out there and vote, remember people made huge sacrifices for you do this.

Tim Prest, Malton

• MAY I through your paper draw people’s attention to the following. It was very interesting to hear about the flying of a plane using solar power. It was even more interesting to learn that much more use could be made of solar power.

Solar power, it was stated, if used on all our houses would eliminate the need to any further power. What need then would there be for fracking? I could be wrong, but logically there would seem to be no need for it. Just as an afterthought, it is interesting to note that the well established companies working in the North Sea are now pulling out of operating there.

It is new companies now, ones I have never heard of that are going in there now. The question is, do the old established companies know something that the newer ones don’t? What about that bi Piper Alpha explosion? There are lots of questions to answer. Let’s just hope that the advice given to Ryedale district councillors would stand up in court if it ever came to the crunch.

Ann Hopkinson, Malton town and Ryedale district councillor