Frack Free Greater Manchester's Judith Paskell has just returned from the Parliament Square Extinction Rebellion protests in London and says "It is the most inspiring movement you've ever seen, along with the school climate strikes.
"I first became involved in fighting fracking because I was so worried about climate change" she adds "Opposing fracking is an integral part of that fight, because fracking is a new and particularly polluting fossil fuel. What we need to do is to leave all the fossil fuels in the ground and phase them out within the next five years ideally..."
This afternoon, Judith was on Salford Precinct, along with other climate change activists, Salford City UNISON members and various local election candidates. They were asking shoppers to sign a letter to their local councillors, urging them to call on Salford City Council to "ensure IGas fulfils the terms of their original contract and fully restores Barton Moss site in line with their planning obligations".
Fracking company, IGas, was told to restore the Barton Moss site after it had done 'exploratory drilling' there during 2014/15, amidst huge protests. At the time the Council and its councillors took no stance on opposing fracking. Indeed it was facilitating fracking company IGas to dodge protests at the site, it was subsequently revealed.*
Fracking company, Ineos, has now taken over the license that includes Barton Moss from IGas, and is scheduled to apply for new planning permission.**
Since the Barton Moss protests, the Council has passed a motion which merely "expresses concern" that "exploiting new sources of fossil fuel, including unconventional gas, undermines the commitments to reduce carbon emissions to mitigate climate change and diverts resources away from investment in a safe and secure renewable energy future".***
The proposer of that motion, Lead Member for Planning, Councillor Derek Antrobus, stated at the time "I'm not saying in this resolution - and the Council should not say - that fracking is de facto unsafe because that would prejudice our ability as a planning authority to deal with such issues and that would be absolutely ludicrous."
"Salford Council's motion is weaker than the Bury one or the Trafford one which was actually a Tory Council when it went through" says Judith "They're not doing anything to oppose. They'll say 'They can do the seismic testing, we can't stop them', but we think they could make it a lot more difficult for Ineos to do any of the stages of fracking. We want the Council to show some backbone in following national Labour Party policy."
The second part of the letter shoppers were asked to sign to councillors urged the Council to "oppose any other applications for gas drilling in Salford because of the damage to the climate and the risk to local communities and the environment"...
See also previous Salford Star articles...
* High Level Collusion Between Salford Council, IGas, Greater Manchester Police and Peel Holdings - click here
** Ineos To Return to Barton Moss - click here
** *It Would Be Ludicrous To Ban Fracking Says Salford Planning Lead Member - click here
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