One of the things I do for Greenpeace is political lobbying. Normally that involves me writing to or going to see my MP Ken Clarke (lucky me) but recently I was asked to write to the leader of Nottinghamshire County Council to ask his opinion on fracking and whether he would allow it in Nottinghamshire. Typically he passed it on to someone who knew something about the issue - the head of planning! Oh no, planning again! I dealt with the planning department a while ago when Greenpeace was having a campaign about open cast coal mining as part of the campaign to stop Kingsnorth becoming the first coal-fired power station in this country for 20 or so years. At the time, Ed Miliband was the minister in charge of climate change and energy (DECC) so that gives you an idea of how long ago it was. Anyway as a result of that campaign I sort of learned my way roughtly around how planning operates and the issues that are relevant to making a planning decision. Boring but important.
So, back to the story, I got a letter from the head of planning outlining the processes involved in a planning application to do fracking, which was very useful, and she very conveniently told me that there were no planning applications at the moment for fracking in Nottinghamshire - all good news.
She also told me there would be a public consultation on the Minerals Local Plan (have I bored you yet?). Fracking is covered by the minerals local plan and any decisions on it will be made at a County level not at a borough or city level. Note the words public consultation. This means you can have your say on the matter. It hasn't started yet but I have my name down and she says she will inform me when the consultation starts. I'ver just had a quick look at the County Council website and it isn't there yet. So she hasn't forgotten me.
BUT in the meantime the Department of Communities and Local Government (Eric Pickle's department) are holding a public consultation on fracking. Yay! We can have our say! So follow the link and then click on Respond Online. This takes you to the survey and away you go! I would reccommend looking at a document called Planning Practice Guidance for Onshore Oil and Gas which they have produced that you can access on line. I know it sounds tedious but it will give you ideas for your answers to the questions and does have some rather nice diagrams of what fracking is all about. It'll make you look less of a nob when you answer the questions if you have some background knowledge of how they decide these issues and you can use the right buzz words as well which always helps.
As you can see this blog is called Have Your Say on Fracking #1. So there is a part 2. When I get the notification about the public consultation on the Minerals Local Plan I'll let you know.
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