Letters round-up

The decision seems to fly in the face of all logic and runs against the vast weight of local opinion and expert advice. One is left with the overwhelming impression that the seven councillors who supported the motion (none of which, you will note, actually live in soon-to-be-blighted Ryedale) were “only obeying orders” from the government.

Their decision appeared pre-determined; the meetings of last Friday and the following Monday seemed no more than an irritating process to be followed; eloquent, unemotional, scientific evidence was brushed aside.

Had the councillors listened to the people of Ryedale, they could not possibly have sanctioned this on such a beautiful part of Yorkshire.

Smooth words will tell us now that fracking is good for us, does no harm to the countryside, brings jobs and so on.

Please let us all take heed of the experience of those countries where fracking has been tried (and in many cases subsequently banned); several hundred (evidence points to about 400-500) heavy lorries per fracking site have to drive down narrow roads to and from the well-heads to deliver water, sand and toxic chemicals to be pumped underground.

Just exactly how do the seven councillors imagine these hundreds and hundreds of lorries will miraculously get to and from Kirby Misperton (and the scores of other well-heads that may follow)?

Turn a blind eye, if you must, to concerns about earth tremors and greenhouse gases, you just cannot ignore hundreds and hundreds of tankers on country roads. How could we have spelled it out more clearly? We don’t want it. Is that clear enough?

We are poorly served by these seven individuals; the weight of opinion in Ryedale is against them. They will eventually understand that.

Andrew Gadsby, Pickering

Sacrificial zone

CALL me cynical but I suspect the decision made by our honourable county councillors to allow fracking at Kirby Misperton was already a foregone conclusion by the time the meeting was held at County Hall.

The planning group who made the decision all live outside Ryedale, so why should it concern them that Third Energy has been granted its wish to turn our lovely landscape into a “sacrificial zone” nor that fracking poses a direct threat to agriculture, tourism and the potential health of our communities?

It is also interesting that there is not one single woman on the group and that six of the seven who voted yes to fracking are Conservatives.

They must be eager to promote the Government’s desire for yet more dirty energy despite the country’s pledge to invest in a future of energy from renewables at the Paris Climate Summit a few months ago.

I was at Northallerton the previous Friday and heard impassioned speakers from our local communities who care deeply for their countryside and for the wider areas of Yorkshire and beyond.

Their arguments were not even debated by the planning group. It was as if they were a slightly irritating distraction from the matter at hand.

It is shocking that the democratic processes of local government have been so eroded and ignored, even to the extent that the town councils and parish councils have also said no to fracking, but been completely ignored. As have the thousands of constituents who have written to the council and expressed their concerns.

One thing is certain, there will not be a passive acceptance by the local people - we shall keep fighting and shall not rest until the spectre of gas wells is forever removed from our green and pleasant land.

A Lawson, Pickering

No debate allowed

I AM writing to express my disappointment and great sadness at the decision to hydraulically frack in beautiful, tranquil North Yorkshire.

The decision, made primarily by Conservative members of the North Yorkshire Planning Committee, appeared to me to have more than a hint of pre-determination about it.

There was no debate, none of the councillors were from Ryedale, where the fracking is to take place, and there is certainly no social licence from Ryedale residents to use our roads, land, water supply and air to the extent that Third Energy require these resources.

I believe that central government has dictated their instructions and those who voted in favour complied.

What a charade!

The people of Ryedale are no longer compliant serfs.

We know what is right and just.

I hope and trust that those in Westminster who are responsible for this act of short term financial gain will reap fitting rewards from their unfair play.

Susannah Turton, Pickering

Shame on decision

VERY disappointed that we have lost the fracking decision.

We hope that those on the North Yorkshire County Council planning committee who voted in favour will hang their heads with a conscience as to the outcome.

Can one sue those that voted in favour for loss of income if and when that happens?

Jarvis Browning, Fadmoor

Opinions ignored

I FEEL I must write to express my dismay at the decision made by North Yorkshire County councillors on May 23, to allow fracking to take place at the KM8 well site at Kirby Misperton.

Local parish and town councils, Ryedale District Council and local residents have voiced their opinion over previous months to ban fracking, or at least to have a moratorium. There have been 4,375 letters written to the council against fracking and only 36 letters in favour.

There have been, over the past months, numerous articles and letters in the local newspapers expressing concern about the fracking industry and how it will affect our area of Ryedale in the long-term, with tourism, agriculture and our rural way of life being destroyed by industrialisation of our countryside.

At the planning application meeting there were many speakers who eloquently and bravely spoke of their concerns about fracking coming to Ryedale.

It was understood that this was a decision for an application for a test frack, but its implication went far beyond a test as it includes production for nine years and it has set a precedent for the area to be opened up to the gas industry, not only for Third Energy, but for other companies who are waiting in the wings.

This decision, as Cllr Sowray said, at the start of the proceedings was one of the most important they had ever had to consider.

Well Cllr Sowray, democracy has not been seen to be done. You and your colleagues have ignored our local opinion and have voted for an industry which will change our landscape forever, not only in Ryedale, but the rest of Yorkshire, indeed the rest of the UK.

Anne Nightingale, Helmsley

Fracking concerns

NORTH Yorkshire County Council planning committee’s approval of fracking in Ryedale raises serious questions.

The committee failed to address the 80-plus objections raised in the hearing. In a staggering display of contempt for public opinion, seven councillors overruled opposition from Ryedale District Council, agreed with 36 written representations supporting the application, and ignored 4,375 against.

Third Energy envisages up to 1,000 wells in an area of 582 square miles, the industrialisation of the rural landscape, according to former MP Baroness McIntosh. Her successor Kevin Hollinrake has consistently supported the industry.

The Government regards shale gas extraction as a national economic imperative, while the Environment Agency is not competent to uphold its mission, being unduly subject to government influence.

George Osborne wrote to the Economic Affairs Committee in September 2014, saying the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency should have “the resources and skills in place to publicly defend the robustness and safety of the regulatory regime”. This shows a concern to neutralise opposition rather than understand or act on environmental risks.

The Tory-dominated NYCC is a first step in a massive shale gas project across Northern England. Ministers who should defend the environment and local communities do the bidding of the Chancellor and UK Onshore Oil and Gas companies.

The industry chases only profits, matching Friedman’s maxim that corporations are responsible only to shareholders. This egregious ideology corrupts the body politic and takes a wrecking ball to the global ecosystem.

We risk a new phase of fossil fuel extraction, despite the UN and scientific consensus on climate change, and the Government’s commitments to the Paris Conference on Climate Change.

Dr Simon Sweeney, York Management School, University of York

Threat to lives

SO THE dirty deed is done.

With this fracking application, the HGV movements alone are sufficient to cause its rejection.

Kirby Misperton is no place for even one HGV much less 266 and, as this was only offered as a catch-penny, the reality being 910, it obviously outlaws itself and we are putting our health and the future of our descendants in the hands of people who can hardly be called good neighbours.

I think I have said before that the product fracked for is the true object for opposition, being a fossil fuel, which should never have been given a second thought.

Scientific research has shown beyond any shadow of doubt the folly of relying on fossil fuels and the observant can already see the earliest beginnings of its threat to life.

Does it matter? Obviously not to those plant destroyers whose education never took them beyond the false notion that Mother Earth is a convenient casket of ducats, doubloons, sovereigns and tanners to be raided for their sole gratification. Did someone mention democracy? 4,375 against a sanctioned 36. These people, together with those who sanction them are enemies of society.

We stand in need of a master-statesman powerful and able to challenge under one head all fossil threats – fracking in Yorkshire, open cast coal in the West Country, yes, and even the lunacy of imported coal, and so compel the investments to safer alternatives.

He/she must be a social genius, grasping the long-term vision and having to fight on the one hand, insatiable greed (unrestrained by any suggestion of moral conscience) and on the other, deadly apathy.

As the matter becomes more urgent, day-by-day failure is unthinkable.

W Gillespie, Malton

Failure to listen

AFTER the go-ahead for hydraulic fracturing in Ryedale, North Yorkshire County Council’s planning committee chairman is reported as remarking: “It’s just one well, one existing well that’s going to be fracked. It’s not going to be hundreds of wells, it’s just one well, that’s all we’re talking about.”

He had, however, been left in no doubt that written in to this application for one fracture was proliferation. Why else would Third Energy fracture?

The chairman had just heard a representation from UK Onshore Oil and Gas where it was stated: “We think this is a very important first step for the industry.”

What had the chairman not understood? In any case, it is unlikely that one well will secure a healthy profit, much less meet a supposed national need.

North Yorkshire voters need to understand what has happened: seven elected representatives failed to represent their constituents, failed to ensure their safety, in some cases, the evidence indicates that they failed even to deliberate, at least audibly.

Had these councillors even thought about what had been said? Were they even listening? Had they read the hundreds of pages of meticulously researched evidence, listened to the impassioned pleas of those who had spent the last 18 months informing themselves on the question of hydraulic fracturing, heeded the thousands of those who had objected in writing, those who had understood that it was more than “just one well... we’re talking about”?

The answer to all of these questions in the experience of one who attended the meeting on Black Monday is, with the glorious exception of the four councillors, apparently not.

This decision was a disgraceful verdict on the condition of local and national democracy.

David Cragg-James, Stonegrave

Know the benefits

INEOS recently launched a community consultation programme for Yorkshire with a first meeting in Malton, where we explained our plans for shale gas development.

Shale gas is a contentious issue and I understand people have genuine concerns. However there have been so many misleading claims put out about fracking, that ahead of the meeting a big part of our thinking was to simply try to dispel many of these myths.

We invited local town and parish councillors to attend and in the end more than 30 of them came to meet with us.

In our presentation to them we highlighted that almost all genuinely independent scientific reports say that shale gas can be produced safely, without damage to the local environment.

A big part of the meeting was the Q&A at the end. This went on for more than an hour and gave the team a real flavour of the issues driving the debate.

The councillors asked a number of questions, and in particular I understood there is a real concern about how shale gas developments could impact the local countryside.

North Yorkshire is one of the most beautiful parts of the UK, and we reassured people that with good landscaping, shale developments will have very little visual impact.

Along with meeting the councillors in Malton, there were also protestors outside the event. At the end of the event, we had the opportunity to open a discussion with them. This is important because we need to address their concerns too.

The meeting was just a first step in our consultation – later this year we will start our public exhibitions, as we continue our efforts to tackle misconceptions around shale gas extraction and highlight the many potential benefits of this exciting new industry.

Gary Haywood, Ineos Shale CEO