August 15: Fracking row - the views of residents on the front line

AS a resident of Kirby Misperton, I find John Dewar’s recent article on fracking (The Yorkshire Post, August 5) most alarming. I have serious concerns not only with the proposed activity but also with the blasé approach adopted by Third Energy.

As a village, we have gone from being informed by a nice glossy brochure about how little disruption there will be during a ‘test frack’ lasting a few weeks, to a planning application that allows for production to continue 24/7 for up to 10 years, that requires a wall of shipping containers to contain the noise, a huge increase in vehicle movements and significant light pollution from the spotlights required for workers.

Mr Dewar constantly refers to Third Energy as being good neighbours yet they have not had the decency to accurately 
inform local homeowners of their plans.

Everything I read and hear from him appears to be a series of half-truths aimed to lull people into believing that there will be little impact to peaceful village.

The reality it turns out is far more concerning – even the promise of bringing jobs to the area vanished in the planning application.

From: Don Alexander, Knab Road, Sheffield.

THOSE people trembling with fear and with rage over this new technology are like those Victorians who were terrified by electricity and by the railways.

Our industries are desperate for reliable and cheaper energy to compete with other, more sensible, countries. It is criminal that firms such as Sheffield Forgemasters are subject to fines up to half a million pounds for using power at times of peak demand. They have to switch everything off, as if in some backward Third World country.

This new energy source is a blessing to the USA where there has been a large scale return of manufacturing from the Far East, a huge increase in employment and regular cash payments to communities sitting on the shale deposits.

Meanwhile, in Britain, companies are having to order bulk tankers, made in China, to carry American liquefied shale gas to such as Grangemouth, to save our petrochemical industry.

From: David Cragg-James, Stonegrave, York.

SO Mr Dewar insists that public concerns are misplaced. As Mandy Rice-Davies once remarked: “He would, wouldn’t he?” When evaluating claim and counter claim, the adage cui bono? (Who stands to benefit?) is a useful (if not infallible) tool. Those whom Mr Dewar might describe as scaremongers have nothing to gain other than a cleaner and perhaps a more just world for their descendants.

From: Arthur Quarmby, Underhill, Holme.

FRACKING offers the biggest boost ever to the British Economy. Look at what it has done to transform the United States:

1. From nowhere the USA has overtaken Russia as the world’s largest producer of natural gas.

2. Anytime now USA production of oil will overtake that of Saudi Arabia.

3. By 2020 both the USA and Canada will be self-sufficient in energy, and will be exporting around the world.

Britain’s reserves are forecast to achieve similar results The inevitable moans from the Greens should not (subject of course to stringent controls) be allowed to stand in the way of this.

Remember when Britain built the world’s first nuclear power station? And then think what a lead we would have had over the rest of the world if that achievement had not been demonised by the Greens – so that now, when we desperately need a new nuclear power station, we have to go cap-in-hand to the French to do it for us.

From: A H Roberts, Harrogate.

FURTHER to the letters on fracking (The Yorkshire Post, August 12), fracking on the Fylde coast was followed by earthquakes.

Now the Fylde region has drinking water contaminated with the cryptosporidium bacterium. Coincidence or one more reason not to frack even in the “desolate” North? Earthquakes can disrupt sewerage and water pipes and open up cracks and channels for widespread pollution.

Be fair to staff at Morrisons

From: Barry Howard, Pickering.

HAVING returned from holiday, I have just read your recent Blackfriar column (The Yorkshire Post, August 6). The description in the last few paragraphs of Morrisons’ staff being “unhappy, bored and unhelpful” and “staring into iPods or chatting among themselves, but apparently doing very little about re-stocking, or helping customers” is one which I simply do not recognise.

My wife and I live in Pickering and do most of our “big” shopping at Morrisons at Malton. The staff there could not be more helpful and friendly. They always seem to be cheerful and happy, and if one has a query about the location or availability of a product, they stop what they are doing immediately in order to help.

I suspect that the iPods mentioned by Blackfriar are actually the handheld computers which staff use to check on stock.

I have not met Amanda Sumpton, the Malton manager, but I suspect that the friendly helpful atmosphere is, at least in part, down to her. Certainly, the shopping experience at her store is a very pleasant one.

I am confident that Dave Potts will eventually succeed in turning Morrisons around, but the role of Clare Grainger as group HR director will be vital in getting all of the store managers motivated to get the best out of every one of their 120,000 
staff.

I am writing this as a retired senior manager in financial services who had responsibility for 260 staff including a dozen managers. Those managers were the key to the overall success of the team.