SIR – While it is clear the Government has made up its own collective mind in giving the seal of approval to widespread drilling for shale gas throughout the country, it seems to have given up on leaving it to persuasion to convince other people of the merits of this safety – unproven procedure.

Recently, we had the announcement of what amounts to monetary ‘bribes’ for hard-up councils to sign up to allowing horizontal hydraulic fracking in their districts.

Now it has emerged, the Government is considering overturning age-old legislation covering trespass, which could stop fracking taking place under the homes of property owners who didn’t give permission for this to be taking place.

So, the Government uses the carrot of bribe with one hand and the possible stick of loss of individual home-owner rights with the other over what amounts to a highly-dubious and divisive issue.

It will be interesting to see how this impacts the result of the 2015 election as more voters realise what is going on.

David Hornsby, West View Avenue, Wrose