Time is running out. But we can stop Osborne’s fracking free-for-all
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Version 0 of 1. Cuadrilla, the shale gas company, will learn this week if it’s been given the go-ahead to conduct the most ambitious fracking operations in Britain yet. The two sites it wishes to drill are both in the Fylde, a gently creased handkerchief of trees, hedgerow and rich farmland that connects the resorts of Blackpool and Lytham St Annes to the Lancashire hinterland. Not far from either location is the village of Wrea Green, regularly judged Lancashire’s best kept village, its giant duck pond fringed this midsummer with tall stands of flag iris the colour of sunshine. Lancashire county council’s development committee is considering both applications. Approval for either would be the biggest step so far towards the prospect, enthusiastically backed by David Cameron and George Osborne, of a fracking free-for-all across Britain. Related: A county divided: is Lancashire ready for its fracking revolution? Rejection for both would be a victory for those who see no place in our crowded landscape, or in a modern economy at the forefront of the global shift to clean energy, for this disruptive, backward-facing industry. Either way, these decisions will tilt the delicate balance of forces on fracking elsewhere in England; in Scotland and Wales where fracking is currently banned; in Northern Ireland; and in much of Europe, where what happens in Britain is seen as a test case. Council committee members have been assailed from Westminster by legal presumptions and planning rules clearly designed to force fracking through against local wishes. A recently leaked cabinet letter from Osborne reeks of Whitehall collusion with Cuadrilla to ensure its plans for the Fylde are realised. An ostensibly independent planning process is in reality subject to interference from the centre. The two applications are for exploratory fracking to assess the commercial viability of gas extraction in the area. But if the exploration is productive, it will open the door to a scaling-up that will transform the character of the Fylde and have a direct impact on most of the 300,000 people who live there. There are serious unanswered questions about the risks from fracking to the health of nearby communities. New York state has banned it on advice from its medics. More and more British health professionals want a halt called here. To deal with the existential threat of climate change, we must break our dependence on fossil fuels, including gas. Large-scale fracking would lock us more deeply into that dependence, and tighten the lock by adding to the powerful commercial and political interests vested in fossil energy. You can be in favour of dealing with climate change. You can be in favour of fracking for shale gas in Britain on an industrial scale. But you cannot be in favour of both at the same time. Public figures who live in southern England, including members of both houses of parliament, want fracking in the north but not in the south. In effect they are saying either that people in the north do not love where they live as much as southerners do, or their love counts less. The attempt by one group to impose such a repugnant standard of diminished humanity on another affronts our national sense of decency. When Cuadrilla knocks at the door, communities up and down the country understandably inform themselves about fracking. The more they learn, the less they like the look of it. In living rooms and over kitchen tables they organise to resist it. This is the authentic, commonsense voice of ordinary citizens who can sense a dodgy proposition put before them There are already 39 local anti-fracking groups in Lancashire. There is no town or village in the county where fracking is in prospect without a large majority determined to keep it out. Many are experienced professionals who understand the technologies and processes involved. And while Lancashire is in the front line, the response is the same wherever people find out that the drills, compressors and heavy trucks might soon be heading for them. Those who want fracking often accuse these campaigners of nimbyism. But they are wrong. This is the authentic, common-sense voice of ordinary citizens who can sense a dodgy proposition when it’s put before them. Like most of us they would be willing to make sacrifices for the national interest. But they can tell that what is presented to them actually conceals a shady mixture of political expediency and commercial opportunism. They can feel the institutions and processes of our democracy being twisted to impose an outcome in which they will pay the costs, and others who live far away will reap any benefits. Marie Taylor is 73 years old. She has been unwell for a while and recently lost a kidney. Twelve years ago she made her home in the village of Roseacre, having fallen in love with its leafy tranquility. But she can no longer cope with the psychological pressure that the prospect of fracking has brought to her village. She decided to find somewhere else to see out her days. But when she came to sell her house, she had to accept £50,000 less than an earlier offer, despite the rising national market. Mrs Taylor was lucky. Others in Roseacre have found that potential buyers head for the hills as soon as Cuadrilla is mentioned. Fracking blight hangs like a shadow over the village. It is too late for Lancashire’s planners to give Mrs Taylor back her lost savings, and her lost final years in the village she came to love. But they can strike a blow for democracy and decency by saying no this week to fracking in the Fylde. |