I AM writing in response to a letter printed in the Friday 23rd January edition.

It concerns the changes in the law to allow energy firms to drill and inject steam under your house to extract shale gas by fracking.

While I am not a homeowner, I am totally against fracking, full stop. We have all seen the damage this practice causes from reports in America: being able to light the water in the toilet bowl and your taps, the pollution to water tables and earthquakes but to mention a few.

There is even less need for this practice now that oil has fallen in price by more than 50 per cent. Also oil fields are not on people’s doorsteps, unlike fracking. It has to be stopped, we are a small island and this will be catastrophic to our environment.

We must act now, I have sent this letter to our local MP, we are running out of time, we need to leave a safe, clean planet for future generations.

Julie Atkinson Shipton Bellinger