Fracking in the UK: 'We're going all out for shale,' admits Cameron.
Last edited Mon Jan 13, 2014, 08:22 AM - Edit history (1)
David Cameron is to declare that his government is "going all out for shale" as he announces that councils will be entitled to keep 100% of business rates raised from fracking sites in a deal expected to generate millions of pounds for local authorities.
In a renewed attempt to win support for the controversial expansion of fracking, the prime minister will also say that revenues generated by shale gas companies could be paid directly in cash to homeowners living nearby.
The prime minister's announcement, likened to a bribe by environmentalists, comes on the day that the French energy group Total becomes the first global oil company to invest in a shale gas exploration project in Britain. The FT reported on Saturday that Total is to join a shale gas exploration licence in the Midlands operated by the US company Ecorp.
The prime minister will make a new pitch to shore up support for fracking amid concerns about the use of high-pressure water and chemicals to fracture underground rock, thereby releasing trapped gas. New fracking sites have opened up in the Midlands, Cumbria and Wales.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/13/shale-gas-fracking-cameron-all-out
aka - bribery.
Fracking incentives will give councils 'contradictory roles'.
Government moves to persuade councils to support fracking have been condemned as giving them "contradictory roles" and undermining trust in local government decisions, according to anti-fracking campaigners and an MP whose constituency has a site that is being explored for drilling.
The prime minister, David Cameron, announced on a visit to a site close to Gainsborough in Lincolnshire on Monday that councils would be allowed to keep 100% of business rates from fracking operations rather than 50% as before, on top of other local incentives already announced. Cameron said that Britain is "going all out for shale" as the French oil major Total announced that it would begin test-drilling at the site.
But Barbara Keeley, the Labour MP Worsley and Eccles South, which includes the Barton Moss site that has been the target of major anti-fracking protests, told the Guardian: "To me, it [100% business rates] muddies the water to give councils two contradictory roles. One is a protective role, to check companies have safeguards. On the other hand, you have a cash strapped authority that's lost £100m off its budget, like ours, that gets offered this cash incentive in business rates. The public involved in this, who live near the site, how can they trust the local council will make the right decision on this?"
She also raised concerns about that government had not factored in the policing costs for the controversial extraction method. Sussex police said protests at a Cuadrilla-owned drilling site near Balcombe in West Sussex last summer had cost more than £3m, and Keeley said Greater Manchester police was spending £40,000 a day on the Salford protests, which have seen dozens of arrests, largely for obstructing a highway. "The process is so controversial, that the policing costs are much, much higher than anything that comes back. The policing side has just not been thought through."
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/13/fracking-shale-gas-incentives-councils
= new reply since forum marked as read
