I WAS interested to read about Lorraine Allanson’s support for fracking (September 8) and to learn that this is the first of a series on the causes and solutions for the energy crisis.

I hope you’ve got an article on the other side of the fracking debate - if not, I’ll write you one.

It’s important to realise that there’s unlikely to be sufficient gas from fracking to be useful, if there is it won’t be available for years, it won’t affect energy prices and gas is a fossil fuel - driving the climate crisis.

Relying on fossil fuels to solve our energy security problems is about as sensible as giving whisky to someone dying of thirst.

Anthony Day,

Lastingham Terrace,

York

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Give fracking a chance

OPPONENTS of fracking speak of earthquakes, water contamination, noise, traffic pollution.

How come none of the above have affected fracking success in America, where the public are enjoying household fuel at very cheap cost?

Surely we must give it a try, before condemning it on the whim of unproven green activists' theory.

Peter Rickaby,

West Park,

Selby,

North Yorkshire

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It is time for radical thinking.

INSTEAD of opening Warm Hubs to help the needy citizens of this country, why not open the doors of our many hotels for those who require support?

The hotels would be busy. The hotels will already be warm. There would be vast savings on domestic gas and electricity usage, council tax, water bills and rents. Hot water at a turn and three meals a day. No TV Licence required and somewhere to plug in your mobile phone.

Surely we owe it to our citizens.

Wayne Drummond,

Tollerton,

York

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Why capping bills is not fair for all

THE first act of the new Prime Minister is tackling the cost-of-living energy crisis and, by capping bills at £2,500, she has got it catastrophically wrong.

Take residents in a small house or flat currently paying £1,200 a year, which would double to £2,400 a year. They don’t reach the cap, so it will not benefit them one bit and they will have to cut back on their energy use. Yet someone in a larger house currently paying £1,700 a year, whose bill would double to £3,400 a year, will benefit by £900.

Furthermore, since any energy they use over £2,500 is essentially free, there is little incentive to save energy as the country desperately needs people to if power cuts are to be avoided over the winter. They can turn up the thermostat with impunity. So her strategy benefits the rich far more than the poor.

She could have capped the unit price of energy, benefitting all users and maintaining the incentive to cut energy usage.

Even better, she could have adopted the Lib Dem policies of abolishing the October price cap rise altogether, increasing the warm homes discount and paying £10bn to small businesses, paid for by a windfall tax on energy producers.

This was her first test and she has failed it miserably.

Cllr Tony Fisher

Liberal Democrat member for Strensall ward

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Missing cabinet member

LOOKING through the list of new cabinet members I notice there now appears to be no Minister for Brexit Opportunities.

I wonder why.

Roger Backhouse,

Orchard Road,

Upper Poppleton,

York