Dave Beale, Lancashire Socialist Party
Anti-fracking campaigners were celebrating after Lancashire County Council on 29 June voted down Cuadrilla’s planning application to extract shale gas – ‘fracking’ – at Little Plumpton, between Preston and Blackpool.
Following its earlier rejection of Cuadrilla’s other planning application for fracking in this area, this decision represents a great victory for the anti-fracking movement. The Financial Times accurately called it “a huge setback” for the fracking lobby, which aims to profit from an environmentally damaging process.
Cuadrilla can be expected to appeal but undoubtedly the momentum is currently with the anti-fracking campaign.
The council should now adopt a policy position of opposing all fracking, and anti-fracking campaigners everywhere should push their local authorities to do the same.
Socialist Party and Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition members participated in the mass lobbies of Lancashire county council. We argued for nationalisation of the energy industry to end the perpetual corporate pressure to frack, and to free up the resources necessary to bring down people’s fuel bills and move to a sustainable plan of energy generation.
“There’s a euphoric atmosphere in Preston as Lancashire County Council have rejected both Cuadrilla’s applications to frack. Working class people are becoming aware of the power of mass action,” said Simon Roberts, TUSC town councillor in Fleetwood.
Simon is urging Fleetwood council to adopt an anti-fracking position, as does TUSC councillor Kevin Bennett in Warrington.