REGARDING Mr Shakesheff’s letter on fracking. Do he and his green friends not realise that fracking has been operating in the UK for about five decades without any problems? His beloved windmills cause more environmental pollution – visual, noise and damage to birdlife – than any fracking.

We would have to cover the UK with wind turbines to make them viable and we bill-payers have to pay £112 a year to their operators in green levies. He quotes the film shown in Chepstow about fracking in the USA. I saw this on TV some time ago and its lack of impartiality has been called into question by many.

The significant drop in fuel prices we recently have been enjoying is almost entirely due to the fracking output in the USA, making them a net exporter of energy and has radically changed the west’s dependence on the Middle East. The UK became the leading industrial power in the 19th century due to coal power and could be again if we do not take a blinkered view on fracking. The fracking industry did have its early problems, but so did coal mining – lessons have been learned.

Alan Ware, Conway Road, Newport