AT a recent Richmondshire council planning committee meeting discussing a fracking application, the head of planning invited the committee to ignore the question of proliferation and concentrate on the application for a single frack, the risks of which he thought had been adequately addressed.

Quietly, and to their great credit, the councillors ignored this advice.

The real dangers of fracking lie not in one fracked well, risky though this may be, but in the vastly increased risks resulting from certain proliferation, and in the precedent set. Councillors appear to have taken the longer view while decisively refusing to recommend to the county council acceptance of Third Energy’s application to frack at Kirby Misperton.

We must hope that county planners will be equally receptive to the informed voice of the electorate and the Ryedale planners, and not be misled by failing to realise that the great risk of acceptance of the application, not adequately addressed, is proliferation.

David Cragg-James, Stonegrave, York