Pre-election warning from anti-frackers
Anti-fracking campaigners have called on Boris Johnson for fracking to be banned
Nearly 100 anti-fracking groups and campaigners have signed a letter to Boris Johnson calling for fracking to be banned.
Friends who have long campaigned against the practice of drilling for shale gas supported the letter, whose signatories included Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Frack Free United.
The letter warned the prime minster that government support for fracking risks losing Conservative seats at a general election.
It pointed to the fact that several fracking opponents and ‘concerned MPs and councillors’ are based within the Conservative Party, including Conservative MP Mark Menzies who has called for a ban on fracking in his Fylde constituency in Lancashire. A similar call has been made by the Conservative Environment Network.
The letter said: ‘With over forty marginal seats in over 170 English parliamentary constituencies affected by exploration licences, the scale of the impact of fracking in the UK should not be underestimated.’
A quarterly survey by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy recently put support for fracking at fifteen per cent.
The letter also highlighted the earthquake at Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road (PNR) site in August that measured 2.9M. It said: ‘This was the largest ever fracking-induced earthquake in the UK, and hundreds of times bigger than the “red light” threshold in the government’s Traffic Light System regulating fracking and seismicity. It is concerning that regulators were warned by doctor Grant Hocking, president of US energy company GeoSierra, that it would not be possible to frack the Bowland Shale without risk of increased seismicity and fluid migration pollution.’
