RE: letter from Margaret Middlebrook, April 6, Gazette & Herald, who expressed her concerns about the impact of future development on the already unacceptable flooding in Old Malton. She is quite right to be worried but there is more bad news.

When North Yorkshire County Council commissioned ARUP civil engineers, to produce an independent study and report into the flooding in Malton, Norton and Old Malton in 2012, not a single eyebrow was raised.

Three and half years later, and £100,000 of our money spent, the document has been skim-read and consigned to the shelf, to gather dust like an “ole Joanna” in readiness for the next deluge and “Knees Up Mother Brown”.

No one has made a fuss, or has been shouting from the rooftops while a major, gobsmacking, finding of the report has kept, or has been kept, well below the public radar.

Old Malton beware: the picturesque lake that forms in your village in times of flooding, is not what it seems. Close scrutiny of the ARUP report declares your floodwater to be sewage. Quite what concentration of sewage it does not say, but rest assured, the water is escaping from the Yorkshire Water combined sewer, and is, therefore, sewage.

The executive summary of the ARUP report describes the Old Malton flooding as “sewer flooding from the overloaded combined sewer network”.

I hope this information will encourage the people of Old Malton (and Norton) to take the necessary precautions to protect themselves and their children and pets from the serious health risks associated with sewage contaminated water.

I also hope people will feel motivated, empowered, and justified, to lobby our MP, and local council environmental protection manager, to make sure that Yorkshire Water sort the problem out. The concept of further development in Old Malton is ludicrous in the extreme.

The Environment Agency, Ryedale District Council, North Yorkshire County Council and Yorkshire Water might also like to explain if this lack of public awareness about sewage contamination in Old Malton is intentional and part of a reputation damage-limitation exercise?

Simon Thackray, Brawby

Embrace change from fracking

FRACKING is coming to North Yorkshire (Environment Agency grant environmental permits, April 13). No matter how many scaremongering letters Frack Free Ryedale, with their loyal supporters peddling their doomsday scenarios, write to the press, it is coming.

We need a new wave of politics, people who can accept new ideas, new opportunities and bold enough to take on new challenges and new ideas. The majority of the population of Ryedale and North Yorkshire know that we must ignore the voices that oppose fracking to a position where we can embrace it.

We must move on. We need people with vision who can look to the future and see the benefits that this potential financial windfall can bring to all of us.

To quote J F Kennedy: “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”

Imagine in the future a wealth fund from shale gas, negotiated with the companies involved and managed by a board perhaps from Ryedale District Council and North Yorkshire County Council.

The industry itself has come forward with a scheme which includes £100,000 in community benefits per well site where fracking takes place and at production stage, paying one per cent of revenues to communities. Industry estimates are that this could provide £5m to £10m per well, spread over 25 years, but mostly in the first 10 (source DECC).

As a result of using gas revenues wisely, we could have a local economy with unbelievingly strong and lasting foundations. Public services possibly improved beyond all recognition.

A win-win situation for all of us.

We need a new debate, not on how to stop fracking but how we can work with the industry.

Let’s get on with it.

David Pasley, Pickering

It’s just not right for this place

THE fracking in our rural area is getting quite alarmingly close to being approved.

We just cannot allow this to happen here as we do not have any room for error or margins if anything goes disastrously wrong.

We have a combined overlap of the North York Moors of around 980 to 1,136 square miles, whereas Pennsylvania in the USA has an area of 44,871 square miles to play with.

We don’t want fracking in our countryside.

Jarvis Browning, Fadmoor

Long-term effect is not yet known LAST month Kevin Hollinrake chaired an all-party meeting in Westminster on fracking.

Professor Richard Davies, from Refine in Durham, gave evidence. In his opinion, the regulations around fracking are not yet fully in place, and the long-term effect on the environment is not fully understood.

Given that North Yorkshire County Council is going to make a decision about fracking at Kirby Misperton on May 20, I would urge the precautionary principal. The residents of Ryedale do not want to wake up in a sacrifice zone.

Monica Gripaios, Hovingham