• Time for the fracking protesters to move on

I AM all for democracy, but do not like bad losers. The anti-fracking group have lost their argument and their case. I wish they would please stop and use their obvious energies elsewhere.

Over the last few months they have demonstrated, put up posters etc and run a professional campaign, but have lost.

They should accept this and move on, take down their posters which are littering our countryside and accept that the silent majority’s democratic view has been heard.

The anti group has had a good showing in the Gazette & Herald over the last few months. In a recent edition it was all page five plus a photo and nine out of 10 letters to the editor. That is democracy as the silent majority do not write. Well, I am.

When our local MP Kevin Hollinrake went to the USA to investigate shale gas development to give it its correct name, he was accompanied by a party with a cross section of views.

Both sides wrote reports, demonstratively similar in their views. The anti report was then hijacked and we know the result. The anti-fracking group have run a very good, if inaccurate, campaign which has developed a great deal of passion and unnecessary anxiety. I really hope their obvious energy and time can now be put to another use.

We have moved on. Science and technology has moved on and is safer. We need cheap, clean energy and not to rely on Mr Putin’s gas which is expensive in foreign currency, not green to transport and not politically reliable.

So, anti-frackers here is your challenge. Use your energy to help the homeless, aged, infirm, disabled, young, air ambulance, Ryedale Carers, Help The Heroes, cancer research and many many other local charities.

Robert Churton, Stillington

  • Honest people

WHILE on a holiday tour on a short visit to Helmsley, I had the misfortune to have my wallet fall out of my purse.

Realising that all of our money, credit cards, identification and even train tickets were now gone, I panicked. With the help of a store clerk, a boy working on a window and a tea room manager, I worked my way to the police office, whereupon I was sent to the Parks office.

To my immense relief, the nice couple I had been chasing came out of the parks office. I asked if they had found a purse, which they had. I thanked them profusely for their honesty and efforts. I was thinking that I would never see it again and was fantastically excited.

I am so thankful for all of the honest and helpful people I met in Helmsley.

Danette House, United States

  • Reasons to Leave

IF like Peter Winter (Gazette letters, May 25) you think there is no problem with low wages, no problem with the shortage of housing and high rents and no problem with the strain on the National Health Service then vote to stay in the EU. But if like me you think that mass immigration has been a disaster for the ordinary working person then vote leave.

Any person from anywhere in the world should be treated the same. If they want to come here to fill a job vacancy and have accommodation and health insurance they should be welcomed.

Stephen Feaster, Cropton

  • Why the silence?

THE Government-commissioned Climate Change Committee UK Report on Shale Gas should have been published in May.

Could Kevin Hollinrake MP, who supports fracking, tell us the reasons for the delay?

Perhaps it is because the report, using evidence from the USA and Australia, confirms that methane escapes in shale gas production make the process dangerous and untenable.

Methane has twice the impact of CO2 on climate change. Fracking is already a major contributor to global warming. This is an embarrassment for the UK Government and no doubt for Mr Hollinrake.

He could, of course, change his mind.

Might he even campaign against the industrialisation of North Yorkshire and defend communities instead?

Dr Simon Sweeney,
Sheriff Hutton