Letters: Local people matter too
I have a deep concern that people don't realise exactly how much the Government wants to brazenly rewrite planning rules to make it even easier for fracking companies to drill.
We’ve already seen what has happened in our part of Lancashire, but it will just get worse.
It is we, as residents, who have been brushed aside and sidelined.
It’s bad enough having been treated as guinea pigs here in Lancashire but if these proposals to remove decision-making from councils go through, it will be a free-for-all everywhere.
It seems clear to me that communities and local councils, who have consistently rejected fracking, are unhappy that the Government think that entirely removing local opposition from the equation will be tolerated. It won’t.
If the unthinkable were to happen, it would simply gift our countryside to the fracking companies.
We cannot allow these organisations to have such an unopposed and easy ride. And now, with people actually being put in jail for peaceful protesting against fracking, I don’t know what further evidence is needed to show how unbalanced things have become.
The Government needs to know that they are mistaken about this.
Local people matter. Our voices count. These damaging proposals must not go through. Please can I urge other people to take a few minutes to let Greg Clark, the Secretary of State, know this.
Mrs Dorothy Kelk
New Longton