IN common with many people who hate the growing traffic pollution in our streets, I want to change to an electric car.

However, according to the online Open Charge Map, Ryedale is one of the poorest places in England for public charging points.

Here, such points are an average of five miles apart, compared with rural Scotland’s two miles.

Recently, the Parliamentary committee for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy strongly criticised the Government for its feeble response to a 2018 report critical of progress on electric vehicles.

I wonder whether the official rhetoric on phasing out petrol and diesel cars by 2040 is any more than hot air.

The Scottish Government has created one of the most extensive charging networks in Europe – and that should also be happening here.

I call upon our MP Kevin Hollinrake to act for his poorly-served constituency.

And while he’s at it, we don’t want the daily pollution from thousands of truck movements on our country roads because of his support for fracking (banned in Scotland).

Dr Peter Williams, Malton

Footpath anger

I LIKE a new footpath as much as the next person, but could I ask the benefit of the new footpath between York Road B1248, along the A64 to Huttons Ambo turn off?

Wouldn’t the money have been better spent on the all-but forgotten financially, but widely used footpath between Broughton and Malton?

Everyday the footpath is being used by pedestrians and cyclists from the surrounding villages along the B1257 and is in dire need of not just a basic makeover, but considerable restructuring to make it fully usable by both foot and cycle users.

The danger for cyclists using the road, as opposed to the footpath is only too apparent on the sweeping hill bend at Broughton dips, were double white lines force drivers to remain behind cyclists going uphill, the guttering edge on the opposite side prevents cyclist safely using the road going downhill. Only made worse with the full glaring low sun.

The footpath is so over grown and damaged it makes traversing on foot difficult, with sections so boggy after rain it’s unusable, not to mention the adverse camber adding to the problems.

What’s the alternative, the non-existent public transport or getting in the car?

So I ask again, what’s the benefit for a new footpath rarely to be used? Wouldn’t improving an already widely used route and encouraging people to find more environmentally friendly ways to get into town be more beneficial to the area?

Tim Cluderay, Broughton

Is fracking viable?

IT is difficult to see how UKOOG have upgraded their estimates of shale gas lying beneath our feet (Gazette & Herald, April 3).

These estimates are based on what are claimed to be encouraging results from operations in Lancashire and Nottinghamshire.

In Lancashire, only a third of the horizontal well was fracked before seismic events caused a halt.

At one site in Nottinghamshire the well was abandoned when the operator failed to locate the targeted gas-bearing rock and at the other, drilling of the well has only recently been completed and no fracking has taken place.

Unlike Lorraine Allanson, investors in shale gas realise this and AJ Lucas, the backers of Cuadrilla in Lancashire, find their shares at their lowest ever level.

Third Energy, still massively in debt, have not passed the financial resilience test required by the government.

The industry talks about 2035. By then the use of gas will have fallen dramatically.

In his Spring Statement, the Chancellor announced that by 2025 no gas boilers will be installed in new houses. This goes some way to achieving the suggestion by the committee on climate change that by the same year, all new houses should not even be connected to a gas supply.

As for power generation, the cheapest way to generate electricity is by onshore wind and solar. This is a far preferable way of preventing our nation being “vulnerable to the whims of other nations”.

In areas where fracking has taken place there are proven health and environmental dangers.

The imminent dangers of climate change mean that our future energy needs cannot be reliant on an outdated fossil fuel model.

Both of these tell us that, however rosily the future may be painted by the industry, there is no place for new gas exploitation in this country.

Peter Allen, Cawton