Letter: Shale gas extraction - What else did we expect?

Following on the heels of the decision in favour of the Allerton incinerator would we have expected anything different?

An incinerator which as technology advances will be a white elephant within a decade and a future burden on local council tax payers.

Forget all the technical arguments for and against fracking, this decision is yet again a failure of strategic thinking – myopic, burying-your-head-in-the-sand on a grand scale by councillors who not only don’t listen to their constituents (4,375 objections and just 36 in favour) but who fail to critically examine the narrow planning advice of their officers.

Not only is the world currently awash with gas but we don’t need it for the future.

Last year 25 per cent of our energy needs were met by renewables a figure which will steadily increase year-on-year in spite of Government policies to undermine this growing sector of our economy.

The effects are with us now with 50 million people on the edge of starvation in Southern Africa because of years of crop failures from flooding followed by drought.

This disastrous decision betrays a profound ignorance of the challenges confronting the country, not just North Yorkshire, and represents a failure of vision; of independent thought; of critical analysis; of public responsibility and is a betrayal of our children’s future.

Shame on our Tory councillors who did not have the same courage shown by Lancashire County Councillors who refused Quadrilla’s application.

Nigel Harper

New Road,

Scotton