Bring back coal and steam power is this week's letter to the editor from one of our readers.

ALTERNATIVES to Diesel/Petrol/ EVs...someone suggested steam power. .. so here is my response...

Where is James Watt and Robert Louis Stephenson when you need them, or maybe Richard Trevithick with his catch me if you can from Cornwall.... 20MPH max... Full Steam Ahead.... Fred Dibnah reopen the Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cumbrian coal mines.

We are already in the process of opening up the rich seam of Whitehaven....their claim to fame have a swim in the sea, and walk up the beach covered in coal dust.

I remember our one and only visit to Whitehaven beach.

They have just been given permission to reopen their mine, creating hundreds of jobs for unemployed coalminers made redundant two decades ago.

Now they can have their jobs back and teach their sons how to mine coal. We need more common sense decisions like this...

Needs must!

Simon Icke, Aston Clinton