Notts MPs and Council Leaders Urged to Stop Assault on Local Communities Say on Fracking

CPRE Nottinghamshire have today written to every Nottinghamshire MP and to the Leaders of the County, City and Borough and District Councils.

We have expressed our concern about the government consultations launched on 19 July that aim to speed up the planning process for shale gas extraction in England.

We, and the over 175,000 people who have signed the CPRE petition, are particularly concerned about the proposals to:

• Treat non-hydraulic exploratory drilling for shale gas as permitted development (PD), and;
• Include shale gas extraction in the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects Regime (NSIP).

Introduced for non-intrusive developments such as garden fences or conservatories, the use of PD for controversial developments such as exploratory drilling marks a worrying precedent for all those who care about the importance of planning to the democratic health of rural communities.

Combined with the proposal to treat applications for shale gas extraction as NSIP, this would effectively reduce local input all the way through the planning process for fracking, from exploration to production.

The issue of shale gas extraction has led to local people engaging in the planning process on scales rarely seen before. Accordingly, we believe the channels through which they can engage should not be removed. With proper levels of democratic planning, our vision of a thriving countryside with active rural communities comes one step closer.

We believe that planning is the bedrock of local democracy and is currently one of the only channels through which local people can have a say on what happens in their local area.

In that spirit, we have urged our MPs to raise our concerns with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, James Brokenshire. We have urged Council Leaders to also raise our concerns with local MPs and to submit a local council response to the consultations, specifically calling on the government to drop the PD and NSIP proposals.