Readers' letters - August 2

Re: Tickets for PNE meeting Sold Out (LP July 21).

What is going on here? Why has this important planning meeting been made admittance by ticket only?

Why not an open meeting? Who selected who to give tickets to and why wasn’t this publicised widely?

This is not a democratic process, giving tickets to a select few which were “snapped up” straight away, so everyone who wanted one could not get a ticket.

Why should residents in the areas affected not be involved, for example Fulwood, Cadley and Ingol?

These areas will lose a social amenity and have
 an increase in traffic congestion and a reduction in air quality.

Cadley, Black Bull Lane and the A6 are already congested.

This is a built-up area and busy bus route.

There are six schools, nurseries, housing for the elderly, a leisure centre, a hospital and a busy motorway junction on the A6 which causes the traffic to back up in the areas around the golf course.

Most cities are trying to improve congestion and air quality, not add to it.

Large open spaces are needed to offset the carbon footprint and make a contribution to air quality.

Councillors should be pro-active and make Preston proud to be a ‘Green City’, a healthier place to live.

Not just for us now but for the next generation.

There are many housing estates being built around Preston, these were in the plans for future housing.

This expansion on the side of our city makes it even more important to retain these havens for wildlife and social amenities as the countryside is built on. The PNE training ground is an excuse for building a large housing estate for profit.

If this goes ahead, it will cause future problems with traffic congestion and air quality. It will lead to the loss of a social amenity and cannot be undone. Reject this application yet again.

Fulwood Resident

energy

There are more anti-frackers

Re: Petition supporting the policing at Preston New Road fracking site. This makes me so angry. The police and Cuadrilla are there because the decision of Lancashire was not to allow fracking in the county.

Most of us are ordinary people who are outraged that the will of the county has been disregarded.

Cuadrilla disregarded the traffic management plan that is supposedly in place. Are we supposed to turn a blind eye?

There is not, and never has been, a so-called Gold Standard for fracking.

Everywhere it has happened has been left polluted with carcinogenic chemicals.

Their wells will last a maximum of 30 years before they start to wear out and leak.

How old will your children and grandchildren be then? Is this the future we want for them?

So many people honk their support as they drive past, these 351 who signed the letter are vastly outnumbered by the opponents of fracking.

We don’t see the police as enemies.

They are unfortunate pawns in this dangerous game which Westminster is playing with the future of the Fylde residents.

We oppose the way our local decision has been cast aside ruthlessly for financial gain.

Lord Oxburgh, former chief of Shell, has stated that a fracking drill-site will only produce gas for between one and three years, thus needing more and more to be dug to keep supplies going.

Professor Aplin, of Durham University, estimates they would need 33,000 wells just here in Lancashire – all with flames coming out of the top, day and night, hundreds of lorries servicing them on our roads and loud heavy thumping noises constantly.

It is simply NOT something we are prepared to put up with.

Name and address supplied

nuclear

It’s another

folly too far

A recent letter emphasised the colossal price the HS2 high speed rail link would cost us (LP Letters, July

13).

It is, however, only one of the projects our Government has committed tax payers’ money to.

We learnt recently that a Government watchdog has given the ‘red alert’ after another part of the Trident replacement programme ran over budget.

The section committed to upgrading facilities that make and maintain reactor cores for the existing and new generation of Trident submarines is set to rise by £235m to £1.7bn.

This huge rise has prompted fears that other areas of Trident spending will also exceed these already weighty budgets.

A freedom of information request, by CND, also revealed that spending on two AWE nuclear bomb factories in Berkshire had doubled from £2bn to almost £4bn.

Then we discover that spending on Hinckley

point C nuclear reactor is also massively over

budget.

The UK’s first nuclear power station for more than two decades is at least £1.5bn over budget and could be completed 15 months behind schedule.

French state-owned EDF said the cost, which has over-run for two new reactors at Hinckley in Somerset, could hit £2.2bn, taking the total spend to £20.3bn, up from £18bn previously.

All this profligate spending by Government has never been brought to public attention for review, but they continue with austerity and cuts to the NHS and social welfare budgets.

We do not need

nuclear fuel, because renewable energy is so efficient now, cleaner and cheaper.

Continuing with Trident is another folly too far.

Marjorie Nye

via email

smoking

I hope ban is never lifted

I fully support the smoking ban policy (LP letters July 21).

I totally agree with Mr Appleyard’s letter. If smokers want to die of lung cancer, I most certainly don’t want to die of passive smoking.

I am a lifelong non-smoker. When smoking was banned in public places 10 years ago, it was the best thing that ever happened.

I hope the ban is never lifted as I don’t want to come home after a night out smelling of stale tobacco.

Name and address supplied

pensions

A good day to bury bad news?

Am I just a twisted old cynic or was it pure coincidence that the Government announced major changes to pension age on the same day the BBC revealed the pay of top presenters?

High BBC pay will always attract great media and public attention.

What better way to obscure a damaging change to the lives of millions who, by a Government diktat, have been ‘robbed’ of thousands of pounds each?

Roger Backhouse

via email