Havant Friends of the Earth

Published in the Portsmouth News on 13th March 2014

ENVIRONMENTALISTS are urging the public to take part in a government consultation that could have an impact on fracking

Every few years, the government launches licensing rounds for onshore oil and gas companies.

The licences give a company the right to apply to explore for and extract any hydrocarbon – oil or gas, conventional or unconventional. But first it has to produce an environmental report which goes out for public consultation.

The consultation deadline is 28th March 2014.

Ray Cobbett, the Hampshire co-ordinator for Friends of the Earth, said: ‘This is your chance to comment on whether you think there should be further licensing, potentially leading to fracking for shale gas, or to the extraction of coal bed methane.

‘There are various future fracking scenarios, one of which could include much of Hampshire.

‘We remain implacably opposed to fracking on the grounds that we already more fossil fuel reserves in the world than we can safely burn.’

To find out more go to the Department of Energy and Climate Change website.