A poisoned legacy

SO we read in The Journal that our beloved Suffolk heritage coastline is to be put at risk … and for what?A few bed and breakfast bookings from ship workers who fancy a short break on shore and a guy who supplies tankers with rubber tyres to prevent collision as they transfer their lethal cargo a few miles from the shoreline.

SO we read in The Journal that our beloved Suffolk heritage coastline is to be put at risk … and for what?

A few bed and breakfast bookings from ship workers who fancy a short break on shore and a guy who supplies tankers with rubber tyres to prevent collision as they transfer their lethal cargo a few miles from the shoreline.

Over the years I have listened to many stories justifying actions which have had, and continue to have, profound and long-term consequences for the earth that sustains us - the argument for nuclear power, the case for the devastation of the rail lines and the construction of motorways, the fabricated case against wind turbine energy.

However, the case for justifying this vast array of tankers and their tons of oil off our coastline must be the saddest and most nonsensical of all. If this argument wins we simply await the inevitable - an oil spill which will destroy this precious habitat and leave a poisoned legacy for years to come.

The irony of course is that it will also destroy the tourist industry and with it the very businesses of those few who claim to benefit from the tankers' presence.

I weep in despair and can only hope those who support the tankers being off our coast will be on the beaches burying the bodies of the marine and bird life destroyed by an oil spill and spend their profits on assisting in repairing the damage. I suspect though that the cost to us all will be much greater than this.

MICHAEL VINCENT

St Edmunds Crescent

Kessingland