Poo to Fracking

Gas Extraction Licences (methane from coal) have now been granted for a vast swathe of Leicestershire, from Wymsewold (the whole village is included) to Melton Mowbray. Fracking  and Coal Gasification, despite their appalling environmental impact, are attracting huge sums of taxpayers money – yet an alternative source of clean renewable gas fails to grab the headlines. Some industry experts are claiming that 10% of the UK's gas requirements can now be met from poo, and like all new technologies it can only get better. Sewage, household, agricultural and industrial organic waste can all be processed by anaerobic digestion (AD) into methane; yet the majority of this valuable, and undoubtedly renewable resource, is processed by oxygenation, and eventually released into our rivers and seas. What a waste of waste! My congratulations to Prince Charles, who's AD plant at Poundbury is the largest in the UK. Unlike fracked gas, which once burnt will be gone forever, poo will be a continuous resource for centuries to come. Let us hope that our County and City Councils will stop fracking coming here, and instead join forces to develop a household waste and sewage processing centre that will truly keep the fires burning.

UKIP's record of waste

UKIP has 11 MEPs; they might have had more but 2 have been jailed since 2007 for expenses fraud. That's 18% of their total representation wasting public money. What a contrast to the 0.7% of GDP that we give to fight disease & poverty, investing in education and essential infrastructure in developing countries.

George Osborne's Fracking Policy - Go North for Growth

May I congratulate George Osborne on his innovative solution to the North-South divide. By offering subsidies for gas fracking he has delivered an awesome planning blight on a swathe of prosperous Southern England, from Dorset to Kent. Who now would want to invest or buy a home there. Also let us not forget that there are proven oil and gas reserves beneath Charnwood Forest, which thanks to the County Council's Mineral Policy mining companies are now free to exploit. In contrast the North Eastern and Tees Valley Local Enterprise Partnerships have hailed a £66 Million investment programme into wind turbines as the start of a £7 Billion boom in renewable energy construction and engineering. It was so well put by Lord Howell, but it is the South East that will become desolate, with economic growth in the North East.