PAUL Mayhew (Letters, 15 August) is again on the path of seeking to sustain and ‘prove’ a viewpoint based on statistics (selective part-statistics at that) and presumption based on anecdote rather than on science and fact.

He is not able to mention the size of the control group from which he purports to show that 80 per cent of the UK is against fracking.

His 80 per cent figure comes from a survey which asked people ‘cold’ if they were for/against fracking, and eight out of ten said that they were against it.

However, another survey (and mentioned in the same article from which Mr Mayhew’s 80 per cent appears to have been selectively lifted) stated that when told of the advantages of shale gas, discounting ‘don’t knows’, approximately 52 per cent of respondents were pro-fracking.

Contemporaneously with this, the results of an in-depth assessment by an independent study group into the comparative merits (or otherwise) of energy derived from fracking (shale gas), wind and solar adjudicated that in terms of long-term viability (economics and value for money, pollution levels, visual degradation of the countryside and reliability) fracking (shale gas) won on every count.

Unfortunately, the British public is not getting the facts here due to reasoned debate on fracking being shouted down by the environmentalists.

Give fracking a fair hearing.

Paddy Keenan, Ward Close, Andover.