LETTERS: Community care team is an invaluable asset

My husband suffered a stroke; when discharged from Scarborough Hospital a care package was put in place. Initially the START team helped wash and dress him, followed later by Ryedale Community Care team from Malton Hospital, both teams provided excellent care.

The CC team provided occupational and physio therapists, nurses and carers, who helped wash and dress him. Each and every one of them showed kindness, consideration and carried out their duties in a professional manner.

The help, care and support given by these dedicated people have helped my husband to be well on the way to recovery. Grateful thanks to all concerned.

The CC team is an invaluable, essential asset to the community in order that patients can be discharged from hospital to recover in their own homes, thus freeing up hospital beds for the many patients who spend hour after hour on trolleys in A&E awaiting a bed to be admitted.

We too hoped that the CC team would long continue to serve the Ryedale area. However, we have heard on good authority that the team no longer cover the Pickering and Kirkbymoorside areas.

What a great loss to these areas. Let’s hope that someone soon sees sense and reverses this decision.

Jenny Haste, Middleton

Commit to UK aid

BRITAIN keeps its promises, particularly to those most in need. For 10 years, our commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of our national income on aid has been testament to that, and featured in all the major political party manifestos running up to the last General Election.

I am proud of the UK’s history of providing life-saving aid to the world’s most vulnerable children. As the first major economy to reach this spending target, the UK has shown how a transparent, independent and accountable approach to aid funding can change the world.

It is the right thing to do, and it shows the world that we are bigger than just ourselves. Immunising millions of children against preventable diseases makes us a bigger Britain. Supporting our doctors and nurses to lead the fight against Ebola makes us a bigger Britain. Creating jobs and trade opportunities in developing countries makes us a bigger Britain.

This election must be an opportunity for all parties to reaffirm that commitment. Let us all call on our future politicians to show their commitment to the most vulnerable by protecting UK aid.

Stephen Forde, Kirby Grindalythe

Issues over trust

FRACKING firm INEOS expect us to trust them to frack for gas safely in Yorkshire.

However, in recent weeks reports have emerged exposing the company’s “very poor” environmental and safety record at its Grangemouth refinery.

Documents released by SEPA (The Scottish equivalent of the EA) reveal that on March 1, this year, there was a gas leak under a road at the site. In May 2016 another “human error” caused a major discharge of 40 tonnes of sulphur.

The investigation also found “there was also an overflowing pollution tank in April, a carbon monoxide release in breach of an environmental standard in August and a loud ‘whining noise’ in November prompting complaints”.

Russell Scott, member of Frack Free Ryedale, Ryedale and London

Don’t be deluded

WE are deluding ourselves if we think that our experience of gas extraction in North Yorkshire bears any comparison with what will be the reality of fracking.

Since 2000 there have been a mere 11 conventional wells drilled in North Yorkshire.

Third Energy has stated that it is looking at 19 well pads in Ryedale with up to 50 wells on each pad. INEOS gave a figure of 30 well pads in each Petroleum Exploration and Development Licence (PEDL) area.

In a recent submission to the North Yorkshire Joint Minerals and Waste Plan, EGDON Resources stated there was, “no justification for setting a well pad density or arbitrary limit to the number of wells within a PEDL area”.

We must wake up to the reality of unconventional gas extraction, no matter how disturbing and inconvenient. We are not looking at 11 conventional wells over 17 years, but at thousands of unconventional wells over the next 10.

The evidence is overwhelming that what we could see across the whole of the north of England is one huge gas field, taking no account of the communities and landscapes that people know are so precious.

Peter Allen, Cawton