Green MEP for Oxfordshire KEITH TAYLOR on the county’s fracking threat

The fight against fracking in Oxfordshire is about to begin in earnest. The Government has announced tax breaks for corporations and compensation for communities as fracking companies look to start shale gas exploitation beneath the countryside.

Reports suggest that the Department of Energy and Climate Change is currently deciding whether to grant a licence that would allow firms to tap an area between Banbury, Bicester and Kidlington for gas.

Shale gas is trapped so tightly in the rock that it has to be smashed out by high pressure blasts of chemically-infused water (the process known as ‘fracking’).

This might be the stuff of George Osborne’s dreams but exploiting it could be a nightmare for people living in Oxfordshire.

Evidence from abroad, which has been visible to anyone who came to a screening on my Drill Baby Drill film tour, suggests that fracking can be devastating for communities. In recent weeks, studies from Pennsylvania have shown drinking water near fracking sites to be highly contaminated and an explosion at a fracking site in West Virginia hospitalised four workers only last week.

Footage of huge trucks driving through sleepy Polish villages, as they bring in the millions of gallons of water needed for fracking, will be deeply worrying to the people of Oxfordshire, where companies are likely to seeking sites for extract oil and gas from the shale.

The gas flares, which burn waste gas in the exploration stage of fracking and emit harmful air pollutants, aren’t something that anyone in Oxfordshire would want near their house.

And it looks likely that these fracking wells, and their associated flares, could end up covering large swathes of our countryside.

A study by Bloomberg based on average well extraction data from the US, found that meeting North Sea production levels of 1,460bn cubic feet and sustaining those levels for 10 years would require between 10,000 and 20,000 shale gas wells in the UK.

With fracking firms like Cuadrilla lining up to take advantage of central government incentives it isn’t just people living next to fracking sites that should be concerned.

Indeed, anyone interested in lowering our energy bills might think twice about fracking when Cuadrilla’s own management admit that shale gas extraction will have little effect on energy prices for consumers. On top of this our hopes of cutting our greenhouse gas emissions, and avoiding catastrophic climate change, are at risk of being dealt a serious blow if we go ahead with burning even more gas.

This new dash for gas is being justified on the grounds that we’re facing an energy crisis. The fact is that fracking isn’t the best way to fill the energy gap.

Instead of effectively subsidising fossil fuel extraction through tax breaks for shale gas extraction the Government should double its efforts in cutting energy use and tapping the truly renewable power sources we have in abundance; the sun, the wind and the sea.

The Oxfordshire countryside is on the brink of being carved up as the Government take us towards a new dash for gas. Campaigners in Oxforshire, inspired by their counterparts in places like Poland and Pennsylvania, are gearing up for the fight.

A petition against fracking in Oxfordshire was launched today. You can sign it at avaaz.org/en/petition/No_to_Fracking_in_Oxfordshire/