FOR anyone who is considering shale gas as an answer to high energy prices or councils that think the bribe they have been offered by David Cameron this week is just too good to pass up, I would urge them to watch the film Gasland.

This tells the story of big corporations poisoning water tables and causing earthquakes for profit by ordinary Americans who have had their lives turned upside down by fracking.

Of course the corporations also have the means to make the people trying to highlight these issues stay quiet.

It is also known that this procedure was halted in Lancashire after it was linked to earthquakes there, but still councils are being urged to ignore this and take the money.

I know government cuts have put huge pressures on local councils, but I hope they will consider the long-term implications of damage to the local area and health risks to the people they are accountable to.

It’s not even English companies that will benefit from this, so far it is French and American firms that are doing the explorations here.

Tina Duke, Jute Road, Acomb, York.
 

• THE Prime Minister’s fracking announcement has been dubbed as a bribe by certain persons.

Yet it is only a little different to the financial support given to ‘green’ energy which originates from tax in our energy bills, as well as other government subsidies to wind farms and solar panels.

The anti frackers have begun their protests. The objections are based on historical evidence accrued during the development of thousands of fracking sites in America, where a comparatively small of complaints arose from the thousands of drillings.

The overall benefit of plentiful supplies of natural gas, reducing the cost of energy, far outweighed allegations from the few.

The question of countryside pollution by drilling can be little different to the peppering of the countryside with subsidised wind farms. It might be possible to drill for fracking in the same area that has already been polluted by wind farms.

It is certain that the regulations imposed on the companies will be much more restrictive than in America.

The main problem would seem to be the need for enormous amounts of water supplies in the areas developed.

J Beisly, Osprey Close, York.