Readers' letters - May 30

Mr Webberley, in your Saturday letter, you complain about the string of plastic bottles along the hedgerow of Preston New Road, opposite the fracking site (LP Letters, May 26).

Clearly you have not read the banners above the bottles explaining the objective of the display and neither have you read the two-page coverage of the event in the Lancashire Post itself nor, for that matter, the online interview with the organiser.

The display was to encourage all of us to reduce our usage of plastic.

The numbers of plastic bottles are the average used by an ordinary family in the UK in one year.

On the day we created the display, we invited along a local milkman to explain about the advantages of having our milk delivered in glass bottles. This generated an enormous amount of interest and milk deliveries in glass are increasing everywhere.

You surely can have no disagreement with our desire to reduce the unnecessary use of plastic?

Why at the fracking site, you may ask? Again the article in the LP explained this clearly. Gas produces ethane, from which ethylene is made, from which plastic is made.

In the United States, the supplies of fracked gas have massively increased the amount of plastic produced.

You can read for yourself in The Wall Street Journal, May 26, 2018, The Shale Revolution’s Staggering Impact in Just One Word: Plastics.

If you imagine that fracking companies are engaged in shale gas extraction out of the kindness of their hearts merely to keep us cosily warm, think again.

These plastic bottles will be removed in about a fortnight when they will re-emerge as our display during the Penwortham Gala Parade.

Why not come along and talk to us to find out how you can sign up to Plastics Free Preston or Plastics Free Fridays?

You also ask if you can have a rates reduction, owing to the spoiling of our countryside? Well, I can only suggest you apply to the fracking company for that, as they seem to be in the lead when it comes to spoiling the countryside.

DM Kelk

Central Lancashire Friends of the Earth and Frack Free Lancashire

energy

A costly alternative

I am sure that when the regulators required gas and electricity suppliers to include details of cheaper tariffs on their bills, there was a genuine intent to tell customers about money-saving possibilities.

What we are actually seeing is anything but.

My last bill showed me how to save £70 per year by moving to another of my supplier’s tariffs.

I telephoned to see about changing, only to be told that the cancellations fees from my present deal – and the fact that the alternative only had a couple of months to run – would obliterate any saving.

So why tell me about

a non-attainable “alternative”?

Better to say “There are no better deals from us than the one you are on”.

Needless to say, by the time my contract came up for renewal, the options all cost me more than I had been paying.

I hope that regulators will tell supplying companies that their “better tariffs” must be available ones to the customer concerned, not details of some opportunistic deal secured in the past by someone else but which has now become unattainable.

Neil Inkley

Walton-Le-Dale

HS2

£55bn spent on white elephant

At a mind-blowing £55.7bn, the project which nobody except the Establishment wants is the biggest-ever infrastructure project in Britain – and the total is already forecast to rise!

The Establishment is determined to force this white elephant upon us because, as has been proved from similar projects in Paris and Tokyo, the outcome is nothing to do with a 20-minute shorter journey, but will effectively draw talent, enterprise and new businesses from the regions to the capital.

If only the public were allowed a say about this, or even to express an opinion which would influence the Establishment – because if all that vast amount of borrowing is to be undertaken, then how much better to spend it on the National Health Service – to the benefit of the whole country!

The award of an initial, exploratory contract of £1.4bn to Carillion shortly before that company collapsed is an excellent opportunity to cancel the whole madness.

Arthur Quarmby

via email

parking

Pro-rata a better idea

My husband and I recently went to Brockholes, pictured, but didn’t stay due to the cost of the car parking.

It’s £5 for the day which is reasonable if you’re stopping for a long time, but there’s no pro rata price.

As we have limited mobility and wanted to stop an hour, it works out expensive.

It’s a shame really, it’s such a lovely peaceful place.

Lyn

via email

food

Cans that can’t be opened

What has happened to our canned food? Trying to open cans is frustrating. I have two new butterfly openers, and a battery one. I am finding it impossible to open most of the cans, ending up cutting the stubborn bits with heavy scissors, which can be dangerous.

E S

Address supplied