Letters - July 24, 2018

The dried up bed of the United Utilities owned Wayoh Reservoir in the village of Edgworth, Bolton, Lancashire, July 7 2018. Together with the Entwistle reservoir, it supplies around 50% of the dinking water for Bolton. The reservoir was built in 1876, and stone walls, bridges, farm fences and other structures are starting to reappear. United Utilities have threatened a hosepipe ban within days if the situation does not improve.
*** Local Caption *** — The dried up bed of the United Utilities owned Wayoh Reservoir in the village of Edgworth, Bolton, Lancashire, July 7 2018. Together with the Entwistle reservoir, it supplies around 50% of the dinking water for Bolton. The reservoir was built in 1876, and stone walls, bridges, farm fences and other structures are starting to reappear. United Utilities have threatened a hosepipe ban within days if the situation does not improve. *** Local Caption ***

As United Utilities becomes the only water company in mainland UK to introduce a hosepipe ban during the longest heatwave in 42  years, I would like to know where the millions of litres  of water come from that are used for - and wasted on - fracking.

If we are all restricted in our use of water or face a £1,000 fine, shouldn’t fracking in the Fylde area at least be suspended?

This really serves to highlight the fragility of our precious water supplies in the North West and the vulnerability of our groundwater reserves to contamination through fracking.

The River Wyre is already topped up by water from the Lune via a pipeline as the Wyre cannot sustain its normal non-drought water abstraction requirements.

The Government tells us that the fracking industry must follow strict guidelines to prevent contamination – but so must United Utilities yet it didn’t stop water supplies to 700,000 people being contaminated throughout the summer of 2015.

Imagine seeing images of empty reservoirs combined with unusable contaminated underground supplies. It wouldn’t just be gardens and car washing that would be restricted (for years not weeks) and Cuadrilla saying “oops, sorry about that” would hardly be adequate.

Fracking is abhorrent  on so many levels.

Ian Hughes

Address supplied

EDUCATION

I’m not yet ready for the big school

Well, that’s it then, seven years of primary school over.

That first day in reception, the tears (that was me), now Year Six finishes and you wonder how the time has flown so fast.

Well son and heir is off to the big school.

Good luck to all kids starting school and those making the leap to the big time.

Better get my supply of tissues ready. I am not ready yet for big school.

Jayne Grayson

Address supplied

FERRY

Great insight into a landmark service

I read with interest Bob Winder’s interesting letter, outlining childhood memories of using the Fleetwood to Knott End Ferry service (Your Say, July 20).

During the later 1940s the service was conveying up to one and a half million passengers per year.

Fortunately despite occasional uncertainty, the service is still operating - much as it originated in Victorian days. Bob referred to Angel Norris’s splendid recently published book about the ferry. It offers a wonderful in depth history of the service and many of the ‘characters’ associated with it. Copies of the book are available from Fleetwood Museum shop with the museum displaying a fine scale model of the old Wyresdale and historic archive film of the busy ferry operating.

Dick Gillingham

Fleetwood

BREXIT

Renegotiating all existing EU deals

In case anyone has not noticed the EU has just signed a huge trade deal with Japan.

This is a deal that cuts or eliminates tariffs on nearly all goods, covers 600 million people and almost a third of the global economy. It will remove tariffs on European exports such as cheese and wine. Japanese carmakers and electronics firms will face fewer barriers in the EU.

While the UK prepares to leave the EU we will also have to renegotiate about 80 trade agreements that we currently enjoy by being EU members.

This includes the agreement with Japan which, if we want to protect thousands of jobs at car companies like Nissan and Honda, the UK will have to replicate.

Leaving the EU means not only removing ourselves from the largest single market in the world, but we will also have to begin the lengthy negotiations to strike bilateral trade agreements with those very same countries.

John Prance

Address supplied

SUGAR TAX

No incentive to buy no-sugar drinks

I thought the idea of the sugar tax was to encourage shoppers to purchase healthier alternatives.

Some supermarkets have increased the price of the no-sugar soft drinks to match that of the ones carrying the sugar tax so that they are no cheaper, ie there is no incentive to buy the healthier option. Other supermarkets have kept the no-sugar alternatives at their original price but have reduced the size of the bottle - increasing the price by 25 per cent.

Martin Phillips

Address supplied