Reform fracking red flags for Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire constituents

A full list of 187 electoral areas which would be threatened by renewed fracking should Nigel Farage’s party win the next general election has been published. 

Of the constituencies listed, 141 are currently Labour seats, 25 are held by the Conservatives, 15 are under Liberal Democrat control.

Regions across the North of England are likely to be most impacted, all of which make up the vast Bowland shale rock formation. Just two have a Reform UK MP, the party which has pledged to renew fracking projects across the UK if it wins the next general election.

This is despite widespread objection to the practice, which has been linked to a number of environmental incidents, including earth tremors at Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road site, which led to the existing moratorium being introduced in 2019.

The same year, geologists warned the practice could lead to toxic contamination, including areas of major city regions such as Liverpool, Greater Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield. According to a YouGov poll conducted last month, 50% of the British public are against resuming fracking for shale gas. 25% said they would support such a policy, while one-quarter weren’t sure of their feelings on the issue. 

‘Reform has seriously miscalculated if it thinks people will lie down and accept such a deeply unpopular policy were it ever to get into power. We saw how well that worked out for Liz Truss – backing fracking was one of the key factors that led to her demise, said Tony Bosworth, climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth.

‘Wherever attempts to get fracking off the ground in the UK have been made, local communities have always been in staunch opposition knowing they’ll pay the true environmental and local costs of developers’ get-rich schemes,’ he continued. ‘The fact remains that fracking will do absolutely nothing to ease the pain being felt in people’s lives either. With the price of gas dictated by global markets, it won’t make a drop of difference to our bills. The real path to cheap and affordable energy is going green and clean by unlocking the UK’s vast renewable power potential.’

You can find more information on the issue here.

Image: Paul-Alain Hunt / Unsplash

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