(Ellesmere Port and Neston)
(Lab):...By transferring responsibility for these
decisions to a permitted development or centralised system, the
Government are, in essence, making it easier to apply for
permission to carry out fracking than to apply for a two-storey
side extension to a semi-detached house. Friends of the Earth has
warned that the plans
“pervert the planning process and could make England’s landscape
a Wild West for whatever cowboy wants to start drilling and
digging up our countryside.”
The Campaign to Protect Rural England calls
it
“an outright assault on local communities’ ability to exercise
their democratic rights in influencing fracking applications”
and adds that it
“reads like a wish list from the fracking companies themselves.”
If we are truly going to take back control, we should have a
genuine democratic procedure, not a stitch-up that benefits a few
private interests...
(City of Durham)
(Lab):...Community and environmental groups, including
the Campaign to Protect Rural
England and Friends of the Earth, have fought
back against the Government’s proposals, including by taking them
to court, but they have ploughed on regardless, including by
withdrawing support for safer sources of energy, such as nuclear,
tidal and onshore wind, as referred to in points made excellently
by the hon. Members for Wells (James Heappey) and for North East
Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), and by my hon. Friend the Member for
Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire)...
To read the whole debate, CLICK
HERE
