Anti-frackers vow to reintroduce Lancashire campaigns
'The new prime minister Liz Truss announced on 8 September that she would reverse the 2019 moratorium on fracking.'
Anti-fracking campaigners in Lancashire have said they will bring back protests if the government pushes ahead with plans to reintroduce fracking.
The new prime minister Liz Truss announced on 8 September that she would reverse the 2019 moratorium on fracking, claiming that it is a way to help boost the UK’s domestic gas supplies. Labour said the move would damage efforts to hit ‘net zero’ targets.
Quakers have been highly active in anti-fracking rallies over the years, particularly at the Preston New Road (PNR) site near Blackpool in Lancashire. The practice was banned in 2019 after record-breaking earth tremors, with one causing damage to buildings. A local Quaker told the Friend at the time that the earthquakes had been frightening and felt across the region.
Green campaigners and cross-party political figures have slammed the decision to reverse the ban, with many calling for a recently-completed review of fracking in the UK to be released. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has been sitting on a report delivered in early July by the British Geological Survey into the possible dangers of the practice.
Georgia Whitaker, oil and gas campaigner at Greenpeace UK, accused the government of using it as ‘an attempt to distract’ from the energy crisis. She said, ‘It will not lower bills. It will not make us less dependent on volatile gas markets. It will not reduce our carbon emissions.’
Quakers celebrated less than three years ago when, after years of campaigning, fracking was halted after a series of earth tremors at Cuadrilla’s shale gas site at PNR.
