Letters - April 15, 2016

Last week I had some friends from the travel industry in London come up to visit me. I stood with a few passengers in the rain and wind, waiting for the arrival of the coach.

When they disembarked they could not believe that there was not a proper terminal where they could sit and take refreshments.

They remarked that, as Blackpool was a major holiday resort, there should be a proper terminal.

Blackpool Council should be spending money on a new terminal rather than waste tax payers’ money on a short, expensive tram extension.

Come on you Labour lefties, reconsider your decision.

If you had a vote in a tram extension or much cheaper coach station, as Mr Gledhill remarked, I bet I know which one would win by a street.

Charlie Telfer

via email

FRACKING

The absence of facts is a concern for me

A correspondent (Your Say, April 9) urges the Gazette to concentrate on scientific facts about shale gas, and I can understand why he says this.

Mr Standing is a geologist so will recognise that the Bowland Shale is quite heavily faulted. Faults can slip, causing tremors, or can act as conduits for fluids to rise to the surface, and they can be challenging to drill through laterally. But a primary concern is that the behaviour of geological faults is unpredictable.

Prof Styles spoke at a conference in Blackpool last year, of the need to maintain a minimum distance along the well between a fault and any hydraulic fracturing activities. However, he stated that this minimum distance is not established, and that was the information he gave to the UK government.

Prof Mike Stephenson of the British Geological Survey, said on Radio 4’s Inside Science: “What you have to be able to do when you decide you want to hydraulic fracture is make sure there are no faults in the area. That’s really very very important”.

He published a book last year, entitled Shale Gas and Fracking: the Science behind the Controversy, and in pursuit of some more facts I bought the book. It discusses peer reviewed papers on various aspects of public concern, such as contamination of groundwater, and tries to “highlight aspects of shale gas scientists don’t understand”.

He says there is a need for baseline studies and for deep monitoring, but as with any new industry, there are paradoxes and conflicting results.

So are there definitive answers ? No, the jury is out.

Prof Styles and Prof Stephenson are very definitely not in the ‘anti’ camp, they are just two of many scientists who are presenting papers and giving evidence that shale gas activities are not yet fully understood, and so by extension, cannot be fully regulated.

As a resident I would like facts, it is their absence that concerns me.

T Froud

Lytham

ATTRACTIONS

Summers of free fun at Pleasure Beach

While I was impressed at the innovations by the Thompson family at the Pleasure Beach, it wasn’t the magic place I remember (Memory Lane, Gazette, April 8).

As a kid (more years ago than I care to reveal) I lived on the Pleasure Beach. From my home nearby, I would spend all my school holidays and weekends running across the entry railway sleepers and make for my dad’s stall.

In between joining the crowd listening to the spiel of the compere introducing the famous act, La Celeste, I’d spook some of the old dears coming out of the ghost train.

I remember my dad, when trade was a bit slow, constructing me a model theatre. Alas, now I believe you have to pay for most of your Pleasure Beach pleasantries – but I doubt visitors can equal the free fun I had at 12.

Neil Kendall

Stamford Avenue

South Shore

PRAISE

Lucky to live in this marvellous place

Please, please no more running the town of Blackpool down. It makes my blood boil to hear all the negative exposure that Blackpool gets.

There are bad areas in every town, my answer is don’t go to them.

Many of the people that live around Central Drive need a leg up, not a slap down. Please do not condemn people that you don’t even know. Life can be a very cruel place for the vulnerable. Walk a mile in their shoes before you can think that you are better than any other person.

Celebrate Blackpool and all the great town has to offer.

Have as much fun as you can in the newly-refurbed Tower, Winter Gardens, Grand Theatre or Promenade. Have a day at Stanley Park, or visit any of the other countless attractions you will not find in any other town in this beautiful country we live in.

Enjoy every moment that you are lucky enough to be in this marvellous place that I love to call home, Blackpool.

Lynne Caton

Lytham Road

South Shore