The Scottish Government has announced a moratorium on all planning consents for unconventional oil and gas extraction north of the border. The licences for all offered blocks will then be granted after the terms and conditions have been finalized.
“With nearly 100 applications received, the 14th Onshore Round has attracted significant interest and high-quality proposed work programs from a range of oil and gas companies”.
Greenpeace said the announcement had fired the starting gun for the “fight for the future of our countryside”.
Twelve firms, including Cuadrilla and Ineos, have been given the exclusive right to explore for oil and gas, including fracking.
The announcement follows the news last week that the government would be speeding up planning applications for fracking projects. “Hundreds of battles will spring up to defend our rural landscapes from the pollution, noise and drilling rigs that come with fracking”.
In April this year Peel published a report that said by developing a supply hub for the shale gas industry could bring a £30bn boost for the Northern economy and support 13,000 jobs, with Liverpool at the centre.
Britain’s Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to go “all out for shale”, hoping it will help reduce dependence on energy imports and generate additional tax revenue despite opposition from environmental campaigners.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said the 27 blocks of land already offered to fracking companies included 53 sites of special scientific interest and three of the charity’s nature reserves, Dearne Valley in South Yorkshire, Fairburn Ings in West Yorkshire, and Langford Lowfields in Nottinghamshire.
Last week, the government announced plans to fast-track fracking applications, warning that it could take over the authority to make a decision if local councils continue to take longer than the 16-week statutory timeframe.
“We are keen to move quickly to evaluate the potential of this resource and determine if we can economically produce gas from our licences”, said Gary Haywood, who runs the company’s fracking operation.
The Oil and Gas Authority (OGA), which allocated the land, said that a further 132 blocks were still undergoing environmental assessments, with the results expected “later in the year”.
The first major application in Britain for a shale gas plant close to the northern England resort of Blackpool was recently rejected by Lancashire County Council.
However, many environmental campaigners are sceptical of this argument, countering that shale gas will only deliver sufficiently deep emissions reductions if methane leakage is virtually eradicated across the industry and carbon capture and storage technology becomes widely available.
It called on the Government to introduce new measures to rule out fracking in all protected areas including SSSIs before handing out licences to shale companies.
Andrew Pendleton, Friends of the Earth head of campaigns, predicted fracking developers could expect to face on-going opposition.
But with the vast majority of the agreed and prospective locations in the North of England, opponents have warned widespread fracking will hit house prices and tourism, as well as increasing noise and traffic congestion.
