The firm behind the original application for Lancashire, Cuadrilla, is appealing against two decisions by Lancashire County Council, after councillors this summer voted to reject the company’s planning applications for wells at Roseacre Wood and Little Plumpton.
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An electronic display board showed a blunt message to the Tory Communities Secretary, saying: “Greg Clark – You’ve Been Fracked”.
Meanwhile, Greenpeace today installed a life-like ten-metre fracking rig and drill at Parliament Square in London to “bring the local impacts of fracking to the heart of democracy”.
Cuadrilla’s appeal – to be heard at Blackpool Football Club – is expected to last for weeks.
“We are here to fight for the future of the English countryside”.
The Labour councillor Gail Hodson, who is in the group Frack Free Lancashire, said they would not give up if Clark gave Cuadrilla the go-ahead to conduct fracking in the area.
Greenpeace spokesman Kate Blagojevic said: “What’s happened in Lancashire is an affront to local democracy so we wanted to remind him he’s fracking next to real people’s homes”.
As the planning inquiry got under way in Blackpool, singing and chanting could be heard from anti-fracking protesters outside.
She said the inspector should judge the appeal on planning grounds only, not on environmental or health issues which opponents would cite.
Nathalie Lieven QC, for Cuadrilla, told the inquiry that the appeals over the two sites concerned applications relating to the exploration of onshore natural gas through hydraulic fracking of shale rock or related monitoring works. However, this is not an inquiry into the rights or wrongs of shale gas extraction and how it relates to the UK’s climate change obligations.
Estelle Dehon, speaking to the inquiry on behalf of North West Friends of the Earth, said: “It is well known that the current government strongly supports the need to explore and develop shale gas and oil reserves, but that is not the beginning and end of the matter”.
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In June 2015, Lancashire County Council rejected both planning applications.
