Letters round-up

While I agree that the scheme has been a great success and saved the town from inundation this time round, it is not the Holy Grail that Councillor Mike Potter would have everyone believe.

Local and national papers have swallowed the hype, as has our MP Kevin Hollinrake, but the reality is – with apologies to the people of Pickering who have been lulled into a false sense of security – if it faced another major flood of the same size seen in 2000 or 2007 the town centre would be inundated again.

Having successfully campaigned with my husband Howard for the £10.3m flood defences that now protect Malton and Norton, I was then involved in working with people in Pickering who had been flooded to lobby for a similar scheme for Pickering – which was eventually axed due to the delays led by a vocal minority of people in the town who led a campaign of misinformation against the project. This scheme – a mix of hard and soft defences – was the only option to completely protect Pickering from major floods.

Following the recent devastating floods there is a need to completely rethink flood management and defence – while schemes like Slowing the Flow can make a significant contribution to flood alleviation, they are not the whole solution, which has to be a mix of options appropriate to the areas needing defence and including traditional hard defences as well as land management.

Despite pockets of flooding and disruption over the Christmas period, Ryedale has this time round largely escaped from the flooding that has been widespread across the North of England.

Discussions have already begun on how we improve our existing flood alleviation as next time we might not be so lucky and we must ensure that people, businesses and property are protected from the misery that flooding brings.

I will continue to lobbying for partnership funding to improve our defences in Norton and Malton and our share of the money currently being offered by national government for this purpose.

I would like to thank staff and officers from Ryedale District Council and North Yorkshire County Council for their sterling work over the holiday period when they abandoned their own celebrations to ensure that pumps were brought into Norton and Malton to prevent homes and businesses from flooding.

Understandably we had virtually no emergency services support as bigger incidents were taking place all over Yorkshire, but the hard work of local authority staff saved the day.

Councillor Di Keal, district and town councillor for Norton West

The fracking fight needs direct action

IT is becoming increasingly clear that any distinction between international corporations, financial institutions, central government and the state, in the context of the fracking industry, has ceased to exist.

In Ryedale, a “local” drilling company, 97 per cent owned by Barclays Bank, will apparently sub-contract the fracking operation to a US-based multi-national corporation, Halliburton. There are now two active applications to convert existing sour gas plants in Ryedale to fracking.

As experience in Lancashire has recently demonstrated, any democratic resistance at local and county level will be overridden by central government, as it was for a conventional sour gas plant between Wilton and Thornton Dale, perfectly placed to frack in the future beneath the North York Moors.

Those crumbs of economic benefit that may tumble from the feeding frenzy of multi-national corporations and government are likely to be swept away by the flood of economic disadvantage, short and long-term risk and sacrificed ancient landscapes that will leave our local communities poorer in every way, picking up the pieces long after the industry has come and gone.

The recent extension of licences into national parks, accessed from their perimeters, will see the northern margins of the Vale of Pickering incrementally littered with drilling rigs, while the local Tory MP suggests that there will be only a “few rigs at a time”, as if in mitigation, ignoring the much more widespread impact upon the landscape of an indefinite rolling programme of rig after rig, site after site, at least 350 of them, migrating across the region with all of the associated infrastructure and irreversible destruction of the historic landscape this will bring.

In circumstances where all other democratic avenues are effectively withdrawn, direct action becomes the only legitimate democratic means of opposition.

This is the message of recent developments, and will be the lesson of those still to come. Those opposed to fracking in Ryedale and across the UK will need to learn it fast.

Nigel Copsey, Thornton-le-Dale

Toxic chemical fears in floods

CHANGING weather patterns due to man-made climate change prompt me to further question the advisability of proceeding with fracking for shale gas in this area. Our river valleys are low lying and in the case of the Vale of Pickering, there have recently been areas of water the size of lakes standing for several days.

Where flood defences along rivers exist, we still get flooding of homes and gardens due to the emergence of springs following persistent rain and we get water backing up from small tributaries and drains.

Sewage and petrol are obvious when they contaminate flood water, but fracking chemicals may go undetected.

Despite assurances by Third Energy of containment of fracking chemicals, the risk of dispersal of these toxic agents must be greater in these conditions. Such weather events are predicted to increase in frequency and severity for some time.

To meet the aims of the Paris Summit in averting climate catastrophe by keeping temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees C, our government should definitely not be introducing a new fossil fuel industry.

It should not be reining back on renewables (as it has in the last six months) causing projects to fold and it needs to do a lot more on energy efficiency.

Josie Downs, York and Ryedale Friends of the Earth

We need a lot of fuel and we need it now

MANY commentators and articles are written as though fracking is the problem.

The problem is not fracking per se but rather, how do we provide energy to fulfil our modern lifestyles?  Some would prefer to see coal. The “collapse” of the mining industry was driven because neither companies nor ordinary consumers wanted to pay the price of British coal in comparison to cheaper imports or cheaper alternatives like gas.

As people pulled out their coal fires and replaced them with gas, it was not just Margaret Thatcher or the conservative government that closed the coal mines, we all did.

Then came climate change; parties such as the Green Party have grown all over Europe and made global warming an international issue.  We consumers could of course decide that we wish to change our lifestyles. We could extend renewable energy.

In 2013 hydropower generated only 16 per cent of the world’s total electricity; solar generated less than one per cent of the world’s total grid electricity. Biofuels provided 2.7 per cent of the world’s transport fuel in 2010. Renewable energies are good but slow. 

There is of course imported oil. Russia and Saudi Arabia are very willing exporters, IS-controlled territory nets an estimated £1m every 24 hours from oil. Nuclear power is an alternative.

On January 2, Germany raised concerns over neighbouring Belgium’s decision to re-launch two ageing nuclear reactors amid serious safety concerns.  Yet most of us will have noticed how much cheaper it is when we fill our tanks. This is due in large part to fracking.We need fuel; we need a lot of it and we need it now. That is the problem. 

Fracking is a source that has its advantages and disadvantages. On that basis our MPs should focus on procedures, ensuring its safety and for this they should indeed be made accountable.

Glynis Frew, Crayke

Sick of people not caring about wildlife

I COMPLETELY agree with Steve Mason’s letter “Stand up for us” about Kevin Hollinrake.

For those people who say to me they agree that they don’t want fracking and do nothing, it is also time to stand up.

There is so much information available, there is no excuse for saying they know nothing about it. I care about our countryside and I am sick of people just thoughtlessly destroying wildlife areas, here and around the world.

Time to put your hand in your pocket and defend your countryside, if you care.

We are fighting for the bigger long-term consequences to save our area and way of life, not for us but for the environment.

Anne Stewart, Helmsley

Thank you very much for the kind words

IN response to the kind comments from Pat Lawty regarding the poetry section. 

May I say it is always appreciated to receive a little feedback, and gives a little incentive and motivation to the writer. Poetry in this day and age, just has to be a labour of love as the rewards are small and the outlets on the decline.

I must add that I remain extremely grateful to the Gazette & Herald for the continued allowance of publication space, for it gives the boost to keep writing.

Regarding book publication, I have tried in the past, and it would be a dream come true to achieve it, but I have had no success on a professional basis as of yet. 

To publish at my own expense would be costly and in my opinion defeating the target, as I do believe if a manuscript is worth publishing, it would surely be published on its own merits and not simply for the pleasure of seeing one’s own work in print, there would be no sense of achievement.

I have written poetry intermittently since the age of 15. I usually find it takes me about two weeks to complete a poem, restructuring them over and over until I feel happy with it. Strangely enough, I usually receive the last two lines first, they seem to fall into my mind and then I build the rest around them.

I can’t say I have ever studied poetry at all, but I do enjoy reading other contributors’ work and also poems I may come across from latter days. My favourite poet is Omar Khyam.

My passion remains horse riding, writing and spiritualism. I am fortunate to live in the beautiful surroundings of Bilsdale where my husband and I run a small sheep farm, but my roots began in Middlesbrough, so you see I am no one special, and was born the middle daughter of a steelworker, whose greatest love was working the land, and where I enjoyed a humble but very happy childhood.  I hope this sheds a little light on your curiosity. 

Gillian Walsh, Bilsdale

Generosity and help was just incredible

ON behalf of the Lions, I would like to thank everyone in Malton, Norton and the surrounding villages who donated money or sponsored us on the 17 nights that Santa came visiting in the run-up to Christmas. We were able to raise in excess of £15,000.

Each night a team of up to 14 people helps get Santa’s Sleigh out on to the streets and this year we were assisted by almost 50 volunteers who aren’t Lions, but were only too happy to help us.

The collectors walk on average five and a half miles per night, so if you multiply it all up it means together we walk the equivalent of Lands End to John O Groats and back down to Edinburgh – more than 1,100 miles.

There is another group of people who we should also thank and that’s the numerous individuals who catch us by surprise each year by offering all the team a pit-stop and chance to warm up with mulled wine, sherry, brandy, sausage rolls, roast potatoes, mince pies and much more.

When you’re dripping wet and freezing cold and still have a couple of hours to go, to be greeted by such generosity is a huge boost to team morale.

Each month on our website we list the causes we’re supporting with the money we raise and we would encourage you to take a look.

A very big thank you to everyone.

Lion Richard Lukey, chairman of the Sleigh Committee

Record donations will provide a boost

THE generosity of local people will provide a welcome new-year boost for those local charities that will share the record donations raised on Ryedale Lions’ Santa sleigh tour.

Over three weeks the door-to-door and town centre collections in Pickering, Kirkbymoorside, Helmsley and surrounding villages raised more than £8,000 in the Lions’ largest fundraising event of the year, as well as bringing excitement and joy to sleigh visitors young and old.

We also donated over 200 presents to the Salvation Army’s appeal to provide Christmas gifts for local needy children. The Lions were able to provide extra presents this year thanks to generous support from the Toy and Book Warehouse, Pickering and WH Smith.

Every year we never fail to be impressed by the support of the local community to help others and this year they have excelled themselves. We have promised that all money raised on the sleigh tour will go to the benefit of local charities and community groups to help those in our area of north Ryedale.

Jim Ingham, president of Ryedale Lions Club