Let’s get cracking on fracking?

Mr Sindall, in the letters page of the Observer of June 19, makes a somewhat histrionic, bitter attack on local MP Amber Rudd over the current Conservative Government’s support of fracking.

I wouldn’t for a moment say that his views come from a lack of knowledge of history but he has perhaps forgotten that for centuries an energy-providing substance was extracted from the ground in the form of coal. And a great deal of that was not far from his own backyard in Appledore.

Britain would probably be a third world country if it had not had coal to fuel the industrial revolution. Can anyone say that coal mining has not resulted in the countryside in many areas being defaced with huge, unsightly slag heaps still very much in evidence? Can anyone say that there are not miles and miles, possibly hundreds of miles, of tunnels criss-crossing underground supported only by short wooden struts?

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When they start failing, there is certain to be a great deal more above-ground disruption than any amount of fracking ever will.

Yet if Mr Sindall and his ilk had been around at the time the coal mines were first being opened, would they have been making the same sort of vitriolic objections, pointless marches and sit-ins?

If they had been successful, they would have been responsible for denying employment opportunities to hundreds of thousands of people across the country over decades and for denying the wealth that coal created throughout Great Britain.

Fracking may not produce the same result, although in the US it has certainly helped kick-start the economy and almost removed reliance on the Middle East energy supplies, but it would undeniably help the UK economy and our short and long term energy needs.

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And is a fracking derrick any worse than a 200 feet high wind turbine? I would say not. Fracking should be welcomed with open arms and encouraged to get started as soon as possible, as long as, my only caveat, any chemicals used are clearly demonstrated not to damage the water table. That I understand is being worked on.

I D Tomisson

Station Road, Crowhurst