ON Saturday, the streets of York were thronging with campaigners – flags flying, placards held high, voices raised in protest against what many believed to be the desecration of our democracy.

The event that triggered the march was the decision by North Yorkshire County Council to allow Third Energy to extract shale gas in Kirby Misperton despite the objections of large numbers of local residents.

Fracking has been a contentious issue.

On the one hand it could open up a whole new stream of locally sourced energy.

On the other, fracking has been linked to contamination of groundwater, air pollution and even minor earthquakes.

In the beer garden of a nearby pub shortly after the protest, a woman, who has been a York resident all her life, summed up with why she and her husband took part.

“Well, we weren’t asked about fracking, were we? They just want to go ahead and do it.

What happened to democracy?”

And therein lies the crux of the matter. On this, as with many other issues that affect our region, there was no large scale public debate; no democratic forum with which to weigh up the evidence.

Whatever you believe, the decision whether to frack in Yorkshire must be made by the people of Yorkshire. Where is our voice?

Chris Whitwood, Deputy leader, Yorkshire Party, Riccall, York