I AM reminded by the article by Stuart Minting in the Gazette & Herald (July 17), about a similar speeding problem some 50 years ago when the residents of Carlton, near Snaith, were unhappy with the local police being reluctant to tackle the problem of trucks speeding through the village on route to the Drax Power Station construction site.

Some of the local residents decided to take turns in driving up and down the village at 30mph in order to ensure the trucks, delivering building materials, adhered to the speed limit.

In Old Malton there is a problem with the majority of vehicles being driven above the 30mph speed limit, some excessively so.

While this is obviously dangerous, it would be less so if the speeding drivers observed the three second rule instead of tailgating each other.

The 7.5 tonne weight restriction over the County Bridge has resulted in a substantial increase in HGVs being driven through Old Malton and has not helped the overall traffic problem.

Furthermore, on occasions vehicles are seen overtaking others which are being driven near the speed limit and it is not unseen for vehicles being driven on the “wrong” side of the bollards in the middle of the road while overtaking.

Strange to say that this behaviour is not seen when there is a speed van around. I wonder why.

How long will it be before “excessive speed” results in a fatality in a local 30mph speed zone?

Sadly, the people who could fix this problem appear reluctant to do so. Maybe one day we shall have some local councillors and a Member of Parliament who will tackle this problem head on.

Jim Nolan, Old Malton

Doctors’ war cry

BAN fracking was the war cry from two doctors in your paper, Dr Peter Williams and Dr Tim Thornton.

True environmentalists should be demanding that we ban imported gas and use locally-produced gas in the same way that environmentalists claim we should buy locally-produced food.

Imported gas can double the carbon emissions compared to producing our own natural gas and crucially, we do not count carbon emissions on imports.

Both educated men condemn the use of plastics and their production as if all plastic is evil. A medical doctor should realise that much of what medics use in hospitals to save lives is made from plastic, its hygienic and single use plastics help stop infections spreading. Plastics save lives.

It is too simple to wholly condemn INEOS for producing plastics and both doctors fail to recognise that INEOS use ethane from the gas to make plastics, not methane.

The gas composition results from shale gas over in Lancashire recently disclosed that there was 1.6 per cent ethane in the gas there. That’s how much of the gas INEOS would use to make plastics from those samples, yes only 1.6 per cent. The rest would feed into the gas grid.

Both doctors must be highly-educated people and yet they use headline grabbing and rather simplistic slogans such as “ban plastic” and “ban fracking” with no real knowledge of what those bans would mean.

Ban plastics equal an end to modern conveniences such as phones, computers, vehicles and medical equipment. Ban fracking equals our reliance on imported gas with higher carbon emissions.

Nick Hardman (RAAP), Pickering

Gas supply risks

YOUR paper recently had an article by the retired Dr Tim Thornton calling for a ban on fracking. He cites a letter sent from the Concerned Health Professionals of the UK group of which he is co-chair.

Research reveals there are only 150 people in the group, many are therapists, not doctors. The NHS employs 1.5 million medical professionals alone.

That is only 0.01 per cent who are concerned after six years of a very vocal anti-fracking campaign.

Dr Thornton often refers to a Professor Lisa McKenzie and the health studies she undertakes in Colorado. Her latest is about congenital heart defects in relation to gas well sites in the USA.

Dr Thornton, who promotes her studies, omits to publicise that Lisa McKenzie herself said, “The findings suggested but did not prove a causal relationship between oil and gas exploration and congenital heart defects and that more research needs to be done”.

That is not conclusive evidence and how predictable, more research and more money required as per her previous studies.

Banning fracking will achieve nothing apart from leaving us reliant on imports which are far worse for the environment and our country’s energy security.

If you read the report by the Committee on Climate Change, their Net Zero 2050 plan reduces hydrocarbon use and changes how it is used, but it doesn’t eradicate it.

In 2050, emitting net zero, we will still use 30 per cent of the oil and 70 per cent of the natural gas we do today (for hydrogen with carbon capture). Utilising our own gas would offer us energy security, this cannot be ignored.

The present stand-off with Iran in the Gulf is posing a threat to the gas carriers sailing from Qatar, another risk to our gas supplies.

Lorraine Allanson, Allerston