Fracking Green Light A "Hideous Mistake"

CPRE Sussex - the countryside charity has condemned the Government's decision to overturn the ban on fracking calling it a "hideous mistake."

Last week the Government announced an end to the fracking ban which had been in place since 2019.

The ban came following a report by the Oil and Gas Authority which concluded that was not possible top accurately predict the probability or magnitude of earthquakes linked to fracking operations.

The report, published three years ago, was published by Conservative MPs Andrea Leadsom and now Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng.

CPRE Sussex is the local branch of CPRE (formerly Council for the Protection of Rural England) now known as the Countryside Charity.

They believe the endorsement from the government jeopardises green spaces and the government's commitment to reduce the rate of climate change.

Director, Brian Kilkelly said:

"The people of Sussex do not want their beautiful countryside torn up, and pumped with poison, all for the sake of more climate wrecking fossil fuels.

"Allowing the limited oil reserves below Sussex's wonderful countryside to be exploited for private profit will not fuel a single power station, will contribute nothing to our national energy security or to reduce energy costs.

"We will hold this government to their promise that licences will only be granted with the support of local communities."

Tom Fyans, Director of Campaigns and Policy at the national CPRE charity, said:

"The brutal reality of fracking is that to get any meaningful amount of gas from the ground would require wholesale devestation of the countryside.

"Allowing fracking in the two southern Jurassic areas would be likely to have major visual and polluting impacts on some of our most valuable countryside and coastline, particularly the Jurassic Coast and South Downs National Park.

Huge swathes of the northwest and Yorkshire and large south coast resorts and ports, primarily in Susses, Surrey, Hampshire and Dorset would be directly in the firing line."