Barry Gardiner MP visits Preston New Road near Blackpool, 31 August 2018. Photo: Refracktion
Labour’s climate change spokesman, Barry Gardiner, today visited Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road shale gas site near Blackpool, where fracking is imminent. He also went to Altcar Moss, a site near Formby earmarked for fracking by Aurora Resources.
Mr Gardiner, the shadow secretary for international trade, energy and climate change, met campaigners at both sites. In a tweet this afternoon he said:
“A real tonic to meet the campaigners against fracking at Altcar Moss and Preston New Road. Visionaries dedicated to a clean sustainable future. If only everyone saw things so clearly.”
Mr Gardiner’s visit to Preston New Road follows those by senior Labour figures, the shadow business, energy and industrial strategy secretary, Rebecca Long Bailey, and the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell.
Cuadrilla has said it expected to begin fracking at Preston New Road in quarter 3 of this year (July-September). An application for planning permission to drill and frack at Altcar Moss is expected in the coming months.
A spokesperson for Frack Free Lancashire said:
“Barry Gardiner addressed a crowd of over 100 local people, engaging in conversations with local residents who expressed their worries over the removal of local democracy and the damaging impacts of fracking upon the environment and communities.
“He reiterated Labour’s complete commitment to ban fracking as soon as they are elected and promised to relay the community’s concerns back to Labour HQ.”
Categories: Politics
DRILL OR DROP? 
Kish?
Time for another half dozen posts on Labour’s pro-fracking credentials?
Well the Labour Party issued the licences to start it…
We all know that, is that what you want to hear?
Labour may have issued the licences but as Barry Gardner said n his speech, the Paris Agreement and all the subsequent evidence since then has changed things. The future is in renewables and energy conservation which will create far more permanent jobs and skills which we can export all over the world and at the same time be far better for the environment. We already have more gas than we should be using if we are to have a hope of preventing catastrophic climate change. Labour have the judgement and good sense to adapt their policies to suit changing circumstances and scientific evidence. Unlike the Tories who are so under the thumb of their oil and gas industry donors and masters that they are still flogging a long dead horse.
Pauline
Labour have promised to protect N.Sea oil and gas assets, and ban fracking.
Good news for the offshore oil and gas industry?
Only a conservative Gov could support something which would break the big oil and gas stranglehold on our gas supplies?
Or maybe not, but I doubt it’s just a plot to trouser some cash either way ( Cons support fracking or Labour in pocket of N.Sea companies, including INEOS! ).
PNR is becoming the Mecca for c list celebrities and politicians! Maybe they see the invite to Blackpool and think it is Strictly calling?
Er… no.
You two are really boring , you add nothing of any value
Thanks for the example of how to do it, Jono. Your opinion superior to others?
You may take this guy seriously, but please excuse the many who do not.
“He reiterated Labour’s complete commitment to ban fracking as soon as they are elected and promised to relay the community’s concerns back to Labour HQ.”
Nothing to worry about then as they won’t get elected.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45364407
How come he is relaying those concerns back to HQ? Is he not aware he is quite a way down the list of other Labour ministers who have made the same trip? Did they not do the same? Does HQ not listen?
A platitude that is meaningless but a trip that will be claimed against the tax payer. I hope he got a seat on the train. One of the reasons I can not take him seriously.
Most of the trains on his route have now been electrified, great move away from diesel cutting down CO2 Emissions
As we all know the lions share of electricity generated by… Yes you guessed it GAS…
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I think he can relay the concerns of those he met back to Lab HQ, not the community as a whole, as he did not meet them.
The real test will be at the next election, and who gets to represent that constituency.
What twaddle you type Hewes!
The Fylde seat is a safe Tory one and always has been, they could put up a pig in a blue rosette and they would still hold the seat.
Just as with the last election the next one will be no indication of the wider public support or lack there of for the Shale gas industry. Brexshit will still be looming large as the major influencing factor, no mater how many nonsense “Reds under the beds/ energy security ” posts Kishney types.
Crembrule
Quite! Labour thought that Mansfield was a safe seat for similar reasons ( vote for anything wearing a red rosette) , but now it is conservative.
Marsh lane. MP now an anti fracking conservative.
So…what is it about the Fylde that prevents a change of MP?
Maybe insufficient of the voters want such a change?
Do you think the alledged hundred plus (wow) crowd asked Barry
“Why did the Labour Party issue the licence that brought us to within weeks of shale gas?”
Just over a hundred people, so the Fylde said no turns out in high numbers for a high ranking Labour MP?
He’d have got greater numbers if he turned up at the Blackpool Pleasure beach ghost train queue…
Kishney the Councillors at Fylde BC did say no to PNR, as did planning officers at LCC as well as the publicly elected representatives on the planning committee at Lancs County Council.
The only publicly elected level of Governance that didn’t say no are the shower in power down at Westminster and given their track record of running the country after the last two general elections it is clear the could not care less for the electorate’s or the country’s well being just as long as they can line their pockets and those of their corporate chums.
Whilst most in that mob at the gates think Corbyn would be alright if he wasn’t so right wing, there are a few in there that really wouldn’t like a Labour government.
Shock horror – realisation finally dawns that people oppose fracking from all parts of the political spectrum.
I knew we’d get there in the end. Can we stop the silly comments about Putin and anarchists now please?