NOW we learn fracking isn't banned in Scotland, despite Nicola Sturgeon and the rest of the SNP establishment repeatedly assuring us it is ("Government tells court: We have not banned fracking", The Herald, May 9).

Is this a surprise? Not really. Not really because Ms Sturgeon et al are always keen to talk up their green credentials and the popular (though debatable) perception is that fracking is anything but environmentally friendly. Backing fracking doesn't win votes and the SNP can't take any risks with its gradually diminishing support base.

Not really because the SNP seemingly needs Green consent to pass each annual budget –and it is inevitable that Greens co-convener, Patrick Harvie, will now demand a genuine fracking ban rather than a moratorium as a condition of allowing the next SNP budget through.

And perhaps the most important "not really" of all. Ms Sturgeon needs a new source of taxation revenue to replace dwindling and uncertain offshore oil and gas receipts, were Scotland ever to, one day, become independent. And surely it's evident fracking is, for her, the perfect, irresistible solution?

Martin Redfern,

Woodcroft Road, Edinburgh,

I'M not surprised the SNP's QC was able to keep a straight face when telling the High Court that there was no fracking ban. He could have called on many precedents to prove his case.

There's no plan for a Scottish energy company, the National Investment bank isn't even a brass plate at the door of St Andrews House, the economic bonanza from the renewables industry never happened and the plan to replace diesel and petrol cars with electric vehicles by 2032, and set up a network of charging points has fallen into one of the potholes which littering our roads.

Allan Sutherland,

1 Willow Road, Stonehaven.

THERE are moves in process to make electric vehicles travelling at up to 19mph make a noise that will alert pedestrians to their presence.

What a sensible idea. Now can we have a similar device fitted to bicycles, especially as so many cyclists feel they have a divine right to cycle on the pavement?

Ordinary cyclists can travel at speeds well in excess of this.

Electric bikes, the new "must-have" accessory are design-regulated to travel at up to 18 mph but no training, test or licence is necessary. Just pay the £1000 and off you go.

How long before the mandatory 18 mph limit for electric bikes is dangerously increased because cyclists are "saving the planet"?

Clark Cross,

138 Springfield Road, Linlithgow.