Campaigners To Oppose Cuadrilla Fracking In East Yorkshire
The company was awarded licence yesterday which could allow them to explore for shale gas in our region.
Campaigners say they'll do everything they can to prevent fracking taking place in East Yorkshire.
Cuadrilla was yesterday awarded a new licence that could allow them to explore for oil and gas in an area between York and Bridlington.
Fracking could take place in almost 30 areas in northern England and the Midlands after they were given new licences.
Martin Deane is from the Hull and East Riding Green Party and told us:
"We will be writing to the councils involved, we will be warning them of the potential dangers. We do not want our area to be the example case of what can go wrong.
"We are right to resist this and we will be campaigning even more against Cuadrilla than we did Rathlin Energy, as and when they become more involved in the East Riding countryside. We will be watching what Cuadrilla actually does get up to and we will take it from there.
"Cuadrilla is a fracking company, they've been set up to do that sort of thing, so there's all that determination to frack the company as we have been warning and as the government have quite openly said and are backing up. But there are more difficulties here and countries in Europe have said no to fracking and have banned it and we should be doing the same.
"In addition to the ovious things about threat to water supplies, there's the extra traffic that fracking involves. One single well contains 2 to 4 million gallons of water, all that has to be trucked in and half of it comes back up highly contaminated."
The government says it continues to back the safe development of shale gas in the UK.
Francis Egan, CEO of Cuadrilla, said:
“We are very pleased to be offered these new exploration licences. Whilst we continue to progress our shale gas exploration work in Lancashire, we welcome the potential for exploration in Yorkshire along with the associated benefits of new jobs and economic growth we believe it will bring.
"Our first priority will be to talk with local communities. We recognise that some members of the public will have concerns and there continues to be a good deal of misinformation circulated regarding onshore shale exploration. We have a responsibility to ensure people understand the facts and are not misled by harmful scaremongering. Onshore exploration and fracking can and will be done safely, securely and in an environmentally responsible way.”