‘We will oppose this’: Lattice fracking plans sparked anger and dismay in Lancashire | Splitting

VS60-year-old Chris Holliday remembers the exact moment a 2.9 magnitude earthquake brought fracking to a halt in the UK. It was 8.30am on a bank holiday Monday in August 2019 and Holliday, a retired IT consultant, was with his wife, Susan, in their neat kitchen when suddenly the cups and saucers started shaking.

“Dishes and glasses were slamming. The windows were slamming,” he said Thursday.

“It was scary,” Susan said. “I’ve personally felt seven or eight of these earthquakes and it’s a pretty scary situation to be in – and to think it could start all over the country.”

Holliday’s retirement home is just 300 yards from the fracking UK border at Preston New Road in Lancashire. Cuadrilla was forced to stop drilling at the site in November 2019 when the government announced a temporary moratorium after repeated earthquakes exceeded the 0.5 magnitude limit set by regulators.

The site, set amongst acres of farmland on the Lancashire coast, is the only fracking operation in the UK in which horizontal shafts have been drilled and hydraulically fractured in shale rock.

Residents said on Thursday they fear it will put them back on the front line after Liz Trussjust 48 hours into his premiership, lifted the moratorium on fracking, aiming to get gas flowing in six months.

“It’s just consternation,” Chris Holliday said. “The drilling itself is very intrusive. Earthquakes get on your nerves all the time. You can’t really relax at all.

It wasn’t just those who live nearby who felt the 2.9 magnitude quake in August 2019. Nearly 200 properties, some several miles away, reported damage, according to Data collected by the British Geological Survey.

Cuadrilla, who offered people ‘goodwill payments’ of hundreds of pounds for property damage, welcomed Truss’ announcement and promised to work with the government ‘to ensure this industry can start delivering results as soon as possible”.

Preston New Road became the focal point of anti-fracking protests across the UK as activists, led by a group of women calling themselves the Nanas, frustrated Cuadrilla’s operations as activists blocked roads, chained themselves to fences and forced police to make arrests. .

Tina Louise Rothery, 60, who has been arrested seven times at the site, returned to Preston New Road in the Nanas’ signature yellow tabard on Thursday and vowed to “do everything possible” to stop fracking.

“It won’t just be frontline stuff. We will oppose this through legal challenges, planning applications. We will be calling on XR and the unions and the lines to block things. We will do everything we can,” she said. “And this time, we won’t settle for a moratorium either. We’re just going to keep hammering on this until we get the proper fracking ban.

Rothery said there would be no local support for fracking even if the government promised reduced energy bills for affected communities. She said: “It’s a precious, precious thing, which is a reduction in your energy bills, in a town like Blackpool which is among the poorest places in the country – it’s not a local support is desperation.”

Rothery, who said she had no history of activism before Cuadrilla announced its fracking plans in 2011, ran against George Osborne for the Green Party in Tatton in the general election. Fighting the proposals “consumed our lives,” she said, but they were acting for the good of future generations. “I watched my grandchildren grow from 6 to 17 and I miss the times they grew up. I have seen people get sick and suffer from PTSD as a result of their treatment at these protests.

“We are here and we will never leave until they [Cuadrilla] make.”

Another Nana, Julie Daniels, 62, said she was “incredulous” when she saw reports that the fracking ban had been lifted. “Today I have a stomach ache,” she said. “Nobody wants to do it again, but if we don’t oppose it, if we don’t push back, who’s going to stop it?”

Daniels said that Nanas Campaign Group had stayed in touch since the fracking ban, but hoped that any action he took in the future could be proactive, rather than fighting something. She said: “We didn’t think we had to come back. We worked tirelessly for years, we were here off site for 1,000 days. It went on and on and we were mostly tied together by the solidarity of the community and all of the UK.

She added: “Liz Truss has no idea what she’s talking about. She thinks we’ll be pumping gas in six months – what ignorance.

Truss had come out in favor of fracking during the Tory leadership campaign, despite previous opposition from her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng. He wrote in March that fracking “would come at a high cost to communities and our precious countryside” and that no amount of domestic shale gas “would be enough to bring the European price down anytime soon”.

Mark Menzies, the Conservative MP for Fylde, whose constituency includes Preston New Road, said on Thursday he had written to Truss to say the area was “totally unsuitable” for future drilling.

He said: “Twice fracking has happened here and twice it has resulted in a national moratorium. It is not a coincidence. The last seismic event here was 250 times greater than the industry-agreed safe limit, releasing 3,000 times more energy.

“It has been demonstrated beyond doubt that the geology here is not suitable and I have made it clear to the Prime Minister that exploration should not resume locally. If she is serious about fracking, she will not only go ahead with local consent, they will listen carefully to what I have to say.