A delegation of opponents of fracking met the leader of West Sussex County Council, Louise Goldsmith, today at County Hall in Chichester. The delegation comprised villagers from Balcombe, Fernhurst and Wisborough Green/Kirdford, where the oil and gas companies, Cuadrilla and Celtique Energie, want to carry out exploratory drilling. […]
On September 15th, the Lib Dem conference passed several motions on fracking. They were part of the party’s policy on transition to a zero carbon Britain. The motions on fracking (F10 4m and 4n) committed the party to: 4 (m) Limiting shale gas exploration until it has been shown […]
The Green Alliance, a environmental think-tank, asked this question at its annual debate in London last night. Below are selections from the speeches of the four participants. Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion “Exploitation of finite resources can never be sustainable.“ “The question of whether it […]
There’s continuing uncertainty about the future impact of unconventional oil and gas sites on house prices and mortgage lending. Last week, Henry Smith, MP for Crawley, raised the issue in parliament after Santander withdrew a mortgage offer to one of his constituents on a house six miles from […]
More people would prefer a windfarm than a fracking plant if they had to choose which was built in their local area, according to the pollng organisation Survation. In a study for yesterday’s Mail on Sunday, Survation found that 68.1% of people would choose a windfarm, compared with […]
George Osborne says he doesn’t want Britain to be left on the sidelines over fracking because protestors fear it will harm the environment. According to the Daily Telegraph, the Chancellor told a Thomson Reuters event in London “Of course there are proper environmental regulations there to protect local communities, […]
Campaigners against Cuadrilla’s exploration for oil at Balcombe came to Lewes for the first grassroots screening in the UK of the anti-fracking film Gasland 2. The event, also attended by the film’s director Josh Fox and producer Deborah Wallace, packed Lewes Town Hall last night (22/10/13). On-shore oil […]
When the energy company SSE put prices up last week by an average of 8.2%, it blamed, among other things, government-imposed green levies collected through gas and electricity bills. Three days later, the company told the FT that government green energy policies would put up bills by £26 […]
The chair of the Environment Agency, Chris Smith, has assured a Sussex MP that local water will be protected from any pollution caused by fracking at Balcombe or beyond. Lord Smith was responding to concerns raised by Lewes MP, Norman Baker, about the potential expansion of fracking across […]
The government was urged today (8/10/13) to speed up exploratory drilling of shale gas in the UK . Professor Alan Riley, of City Law School, told the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee no one was certain how much shale gas was technically and commercially recoverable in Britain, or […]
