PADDY Keenan wants to give fracking a fair hearing.

Well, I’m all for fairness, but we’re talking about global, billion dollar industries that can ‘buy’ legislation because they have governments, ours’ included, in their pockets.

We had the right to refuse fracking beneath our properties.

With the threat of subsidence and even minor earthquakes this legislation was vital to homeowners. Now our government plans to take away this right. Have people had a fair hearing on this? The earthquakes in Blackpool following fracking were not a figment of the imagination. They happened and they’re likely to happen again.

Despite the toxicity of the fracking chemicals that can poison the whole environment that chemical information can be withheld – legally. Is this fair?

When the industry itself admits that fracking is unlikely to reduce energy costs is it fair that the government still claims this in their propaganda?

Will fracking give us energy security? Debatable.

So we have to weigh that uncertainty against the risk to health, environmental destruction and social damage. It’s not a price I want to pay – and I’m not alone.

Some people (and councils) may be tempted by the bribes (sorry – inducements) but many won’t, because no amount of money can make up for what will be lost.

Jennifer Godschall Johnson, Upper Clatford