Should we oppose or welcome fracking?

I WAS shocked at the approval for ‘fracking’ under National Parks and sites of special interest — what an outrageous betrayal. During the last election we were promised these areas would be fully protected.

I recall the word ‘sacrosanct’ being used by Cameron — and I voted Tory accordingly. As a pagan, it’s my first principle of life that Mother Earth be protected, together with the absolute integrity of life-giving water sources. This Government has learned nothing from the South Downs protests. It wasn’t just green, Lefty types but those of the Tory shires and villagers demonstrating and, in that case, they prevailed. I can’t see the protest being any less if fracking is threatened within 50 miles of any National Park. There will never be fracking in the UK, the people will see to that. I don’t fancy being tasered . . . but if that’s what it takes. CHARLES BEAUCHAMP,

Stockbridge, Hants. The closure of the uK’s last deep coal mine raises the question of why there is so much criticism of fracking. I was a mining engineer and my uncle, like many others, died of dust in his lungs, fighting for breath, no chance of compensation. Longwall mining was introduced as pits were mechanised — an ‘extraction and collapse’ system removed a coal seam from an area and the strata and surface above collapsed until the gap shut. Buying a house in northern or central england meant checking to see if the land was in danger of subsiding. sections of motorways sank and water courses changed. Rivers were polluted. It was allowed because coal brought prosperity and saved us in the war. I can understand how some in the south wouldn’t want the effects of fracking to be noticeable at any price, despite the gas taps to our power stations soon being all overseas. But I can’t understand complaints from those who lamented the end of deep mining, which blighted so many lives.

ROBERT CARTWRIGHT, Nottingham.