It’s good to see that water companies (Thames, Yorkshire and Northumbrian) are facing significant fines for dumping sewage into our water systems.

The only problem is that these companies recoup these fines by raising their prices, which they only have to do by a fairly small amount and that’s it. Job done, paid for by gullible public yet again, the money back in their account and nobody any wiser.

The company bosses are still in their ivory towers on obscene wages, dividends and bonus payments, laughing all the way to the bank, clapping each other on the back and saying ‘we’ve got away with it again’.

These are the people who should pay the price for incompetence. Take the money off them - they are a disgrace. We the public need to see action, not words.

M Horsman, Moorland Road, York

 

Sewage system can’t cope with new village homes

Proposals to build 32 new homes at Appleton Roebuck (The Press, August 8) should be shelved.

Labour’s intentions dramatically to increase the number of new homes being built country-wide must take into account improving existing infrastructures to support the new housing, funding for which they are hugely cutting. They can’t have it both ways!

At Appleton the sewage system cannot cope with the existing burdens flushed into it - regular flooding forces raw nastiness up through the drains outside the primary school.

The electrical supply to the village is already insufficient, resulting in frequent outages, so how will it support 32-homes-worth of demand plus the excess that will be required by electric car-charging points at each home?

Investment must be made by central government in these basic facilities so proper services can support the homes already there, without adding to the problem by increasing the number of homes.

J Appleby, Appleton Roebuck

 

We know what’s causing climate change

No Mr Martin, we don’t need climate research (Research beats protest to solve climate change, Letters, August 1) because we already know the answers.

In 2015, 192 governments came to Paris and agreed to solve the problem by eliminating all greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Since then annual emissions have remained much the same, but by 2022 were again ahead of 2015 levels.

After Paris, oil production rose until 2019, fell back as the pandemic hit but is now rising again. Burning oil is a major source of noxious emissions and these politicians pledged that none would be burnt by 2050.

Unless Just Stop Oil and others cause disruptive protests which inconvenience people there is no media interest and governments believe that they can simply ignore the issue, because none of them will be in office in 2050. The present government has at least stopped new oil exploration licences but more needs to be done.

If every single one of us would write to every single MP on a regular basis, then there would be no need for disruptive protest and some action might be taken. Until governments are held to account for their Paris pledges, then protests must continue.

By the way, when farmers and truckers blocked major roads and Stanlow refinery in Cheshire in 2000, leading to fuel shortages across the north, nobody was sent to prison. The success of that protest has only contributed to making the climate worse.

Anthony Day, Sustainable Futures speaker, writer and toastmaster, Lastingham Terrace, York