While extension of the Scottish Government moratorium to include underground coal gasification (UCG) should be welcomed it would unfortunately miss its target (Communities across Scotland unite against 'undersea fracking', News, February 22).
Here by the Solway, an internationally recognised site of scientific interest, licences have been issued for three controversial forms of extraction within a 10-mile area. Our fragile rural economy, based on tourism and agriculture, is beset by fracking, longwall mining and UCG. The effects of these would be disastrous for our tourist trade, ruin our businesses, make our farm products unsaleable and destroy our house prices. And all without any scrutiny by the public or by our elected representatives.
The dangers of these technologies have been well publicised and the effect on public perception is enough to render them totally inappropriate. Add to this the impact on our water supplies, our inadequate road system and our employment and you have a disaster.
However Scotland does not stand alone in this. The UK Government is advertising exploration sites on both banks of the Solway. A moratorium in Scotland would only shift the landfall of UCG to Cumbria with no difference to the impact. The TTIP agreement might expose poor councils in Dumfries and Galloway and Cumbria to litigation.
What we need is a concerted effort on both sides of the Border to get the Coal Authority to withdraw these licences.
Ian Richmond
Springfield
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article