Lord Howell's idiot's guide to fracking and the North East

Simon Bowens

31 July 2013

Yesterday, in the House of Lords:

 "There are obviously - in beautiful rural areas, worries not just about the drilling and the fracking, which I think are exaggerated - but about the trucks, the delivery and the roads and the disturbance. And those are quite justified worries."

 "But there are large uninhabited and desolate areas, certainly up in the North East, where there's plenty of room for fracking well away from anyone's residence where it can be conducted without any kind of threat to the rural environment."

These comments from Lord Howell of Guildford, George Osborne's father-in-law, prompted stunned responses across the country and were rightly labelled as disgraceful by many.

Lord Howell showed a staggering ignorance about the North East and a complete disregard for the communities who live there. These are communities who have had to live with the environmental impacts of heavy industry and energy infrastructure for generations.

His suggestion that fracking could take place without harm in the 'desolate' North East shows his ignorance about the region's geography.

Here are six points he should have considered:

1.      14% of the North East's public water is supplied from groundwater aquifers. Fracking and related activities have been shown to contaminate groundwater supplies in the US.

2.      Kielder Water in Northumberland is the UK's largest reservoir relying on underground springs to maintain its stock of 200bn litres of water.

3.      The rural economy in the North East is heavily dependent on agriculture - an industry which could be massively affected by the impacts of fracking.

4.      30% of the North East's "desolate" landscape is protected with areas such as the Northumberland National Park and the Northumberland and Durham Heritage Coast. Tourism brings in £3.9bn to the region's economy and employs more than 60000 people. How many people would come to an area blighted by fracking wells?

5.    The North East has the potential to create 10000 green jobs from its ideal location close to offshore wind sites and its fantastic engineering skills.

6.    The North East is already facing the prospect of dirty unconventional gas with plans for underground coal gasification off the beautiful coastline between Tynemouth and Alnwick.

Lord Howell's attitude to the people and communities of the North East shows the same contempt for the future of renewable energy shown by his son-in-law George Osborne's commitment to a 'dash for gas'.

Instead of fracking for shale gas - another dirty fossil fuel - we need to develop the UK's vast potential for clean energy from the wind, waves and sun, that won't cost people all over the country their green and pleasant land.

Friends of the Earth is working with communities around the country to confront the dirty gas industry. We hope you will join us.

P.S. For those who want to see quite how desolate the North East is, take a look at the New Statesman's 10 most desolate places tour.

Simon Bowens is Friends of the Earth's North East campaigner