AFTER the fracking decision, North Yorkshire County Council planning committee chairman, Cllr Peter Sowray, said: “We’re not talking about hundreds of wells. If anybody wants to drill a well they have to come back for planning permission.” (D&S Times, May 27.)
He had however been left in no doubt that written in to this application for one fracture was proliferation. Why else would Third Energy fracture? The representation from UK Onshore Oil and Gas stated: “We think this is a very important first step for the industry.”
What had the chairman not understood?
But of course, he had to discount proliferation – a projection into the future.
Not relevant! Although somehow, the projected (mythical) thousands of jobs to be created were relevant!
In any case, it is unlikely that one well will secure a healthy profit, much less meet a supposed national need.
North Yorkshire voters and others need to understand what has happened: seven elected representatives failed to represent their constituents, failed to ensure their safety; in some cases, the evidence indicates that they failed even to deliberate, at least audibly! Had these councillors even thought about what had been said?
Were they even listening?
Had they read the hundreds of pages of meticulously researched and expert evidence, listened to the impassioned pleas of those who had spent the last 18 months informing themselves on the question of hydraulic fracturing, heeded the thousands of those who had objected in writing, those who had understood that it was more than “just one well...we’re talking about”? The answer to all of these questions in the experience of one who attended the meeting on Black Monday is, with the glorious exception of the four councillors who voted against, apparently not!
This decision was a disgraceful verdict on the condition of local and national democracy.
David Cragg-James, Stonegrave, York
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