Slingshot – What’s all the fracking fuss?

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The Slingsby Village website launched the Slingshot feature earlier in the year to give folk a shared platform to express their concerns on the topics of the day. Contributions can be published here anonymously under the Slingshot byline.

You can find out how to go about this at the foot of the page, but first you ought to read these words which have been sent to us at the website by a concerned resident of this Parish.

What’s all the fracking fuss?

Can’t see why so many people are getting upset about fracking? Think it will help safeguard our energy supplies? Think it’s just the ‘NIMBY’ brigade on a new crusade? You’re wrong on every count!

If you’re not worried about fracking, you certainly should be. Why? Because it’s the biggest threat to Ryedale in a generation. Kevin Hollinrake, the prospective Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Thirsk and Malton, recently expressed his concern about fracking in Ryedale, specifically the threats to drinking water, tourism, groundwater, land and surface damage, and country life in general. York Town Council has already banned it.

If fracking goes ahead in Ryedale it will lead to polluted water supplies, poisonous and radioactive waste water being re-injected into the earth near Pickering and Ebberston, tens of thousands of tanker movements in the area, hundreds of wells being bored around Ryedale, every well working 24/7 and all permanently floodlit.

Land will be at risk of permanent contamination. Toxic substances burnt off by these wells are known to contain cancer-causing chemicals and there has been shown to be a link between animal health and fracking. The value of property will fall and there is no protection for landowners when problems occur, which they always do. Virtually all wells eventually leak; by then the company has long gone and accepts no responsibility.

Fracking will result in Third Energy getting rich while the rest of Ryedale suffers the consequences, which are irreversible!

Dangerous scaremongering? Not so – check the facts for yourselves, then join the fight to stop them!

Slingshot 

Want to join the debate?

If you have something that you’d like to share with others, perhaps something you’ve been dying to get off your chest – especially if it concerns Slingsby and its residents – then you can have it published here anonymously under the Slingshot byline.

Send your contribution to us either by e-mail at [email protected] or put in an envelope and leave it with Tony at the Village Shop. Please remember to include your name, address and telephone number, in case we need to contact you, though these details will NOT be published (your contribution will be anonymous). Finally, please be aware that the Slingsby Website editors will have the freedom to decide whether or not to publish your contribution.