SOME residents of Bolton West, and the Bolton Labour council leader have already decided that they will oppose all attempts to ‘frack’ in and around Bolton.

From my limited knowledge the shale gas embedded in the strata does not perform any useful function, it is the earth’s waste, and its removal will not damage the natural environment

Like many lads of my age a career in coal mining beckoned when I was 14. Apart from the considerable death toll from deep mining accidents and the thousands of miners lungs destroyed by coal dust, the damage to buildings and roads continues to this day from subsidence, caused by extracting the coal.

Who at the council meeting and at the Cotton Tree meeting was speaking up for the 9,000 or so elderly and impoverished people who will allegedly die from hypothermia this coming winter, through fuel poverty? Certainly not the councillors, and certainly not the Cotton Tree protestors who can probably meet their gas bills. These same people will no doubt be wringing their hands this winter demanding that someone put an end to fuel poverty for elderly people.

Instead of protesting, councillors should be negotiating with Cuadrilla to get the best deal possible for the communities impacted by fracking. Is it (for example) beyond politicians' wit to negotiate a deal so that if a GP or social worker refers an older person to ‘be at risk’ of hypothermia the gas suppliers will give the vulnerable person immediate ‘credits’ to offset against their gas bill so that they can heat their homes without fear? No deal, No frack!.

The Labour party was created out of a genuine need to fight for the abused, vulnerable, and the needy, they seem now to be more content to simply protest on the sidelines at everything the government do. Instead of being content to climb on to every protest group bandwagon, where are Labours alternative ideas that people can relate to?

Bolton council still pays for and controls hundreds of highly paid officers and administrators. Where are the officers' fresh ideas about the local hungry, the cold, the jobless young, the lonely and isolated, poor care services, the litter and squalor, the empty shops etc. To date they seem to have come up with a costly café stuck on the front of the town hall, which many people could not afford to eat at.

Miliband's Labour was rejected because it spoke ‘metropolitan elite’ garbage. What are the alternatives to fracking and GM crops and the like, if we still do care for the vulnerable and starving?

Ron Shambley

Clough Avenue

Westhoughton