Fracking in West Sussex 'would be a hideous mistake'

Back in November 2019, on the eve of the general election, the Conservative government announced an effective moratorium on fracking in England based on a report about the link between extraction operations and earthquakes.

But as part of her energy plan, new Prime Minister Lis Truss announced she is scrapping the ban on fracking, telling fellow MPs it could ‘get gas flowing as soon as six months from now where there is local support for it’.

Hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking, is the process by which shale gas and oil is released from deep underground. Water and chemicals are pumped quickly through rocks to release fossil fuels trapped beneath.

Lying on the Weald Basin, West Sussex has been at the forefront of the campaign against fracking.

Although exploratory drilling has taken place at Balcombe in Mid Sussex and near Billingshurst in the Horsham district, the companies stated these were for conventional energy deposits and not for shale oil or gas.

Work has ground to a halt at the Broadford Bridge site near Billingshurst until the evaluation of the Horse Hill site near Horley is completed.

Meanwhile, Angus Energy’s most recent application to continue oil testing at Balcombe was rejected by West Sussex County Council in March 2021, although it is appealing against this decision. Other applications for sites near Fernhurst and between Wisborough and Kirdford were both rejected by the county council.

Campaigners have pointed out the moratorium did not stop oil exploration applications in Sussex in ‘all their unconventional fracking and acidising guises’. However, the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s Sussex branch believes the apparent endorsement from the Government ‘further jeopardises our precious green spaces and our crucial commitment to reducing the rate of climate change’.

CPRE Sussex 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.”

In Sussex, so far as is known, there are only exploitable oil reserves, which would not help reduce our gas imports. CPRE Sussex added: “Fracking is therefore not only devastating for the countryside, it is also the least effective way of enhancing energy security.”

Tom Fyans, director of campaigns and policy at the national CPRE charity, added: “The brutal reality of fracking is that to get any meaningful amount of gas from the ground would require wholesale devastation 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 the South Downs National Park. Shale gas deposits in the UK are located under major population centres. Huge swathes of the northwest and Yorkshire and large south coast resorts and ports, primarily in Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Dorset, would be directly in the firing line.”

Visit www.cpresussex.org.uk/what-we-care-about/fracking