North West needs nuclear power, not fracking

While fracking does produce large amounts of gas, it does so at the cost of devastating the landscape with drilling platforms every few hundred yards, toxic slurry tanks and groundwater pollution, potentially for generations to come.

The US experience exposes fracking as a short-term, loot and pollute operation. It does create temporary jobs for outside contractors who come in for a short time and then move on, leaving environmental devastation and drastically reduced property prices in their wake.

The North-West does not need fracking any more than it needs inefficient, bird-mangling wind farms. It needs another ultra-modern, ultra-safe nuclear power plant on the Cumbrian coast, coupled with the creation of long-term engineering jobs through government investment in transport electrification and deep-wave power.

The 100,000 jobs Mr Nuttall refers to may very well be necessary to undertake the massive environmental clean-up required if such an operation were to go ahead.

Nick Griffin

BNP North-West MEP