Banbury area is a Frack-free zone - councillors vote against Prime Minister's relaxation of the ban

Cllr Matt Hodgson, whose motion on making Cherwell a frack-free zone was unanimously carried at full council on Monday

Banbury is a Frack-free zone after councillors voted last night (Monday) to defy Liz Truss's plan to overturn a ban on underground shale gas extraction.

At a meeting of the full council, one councillor called PM Liz Truss’s plan to overturn a fracking ban a ‘complete fantasy project, a crackpot idea… a non starter’.

Conservatives supported a motion by Labour member, Cllr Matt Hodgson (Lab, Banbury Cross and Neithrop) that Cherwell should be declared a no-fracking zone. A unanimous vote (39) in favour was followed by a round of applause.

Mr Hodgson’s motion said: “Fracking involves injecting water, sand and other substances into subterranean rocks to extract gas trapped between them. It has caused water pollution in the US, earthquakes there and in the UK, it massively pollutes the environment and water table - and contributes to greenhouse gases when burnt.

Cllr Barry Wood who said voting to make Cherwell a frack-free zone adhered to the Conservative Party manifesto

“It is inexplicable the Government should be considering such environmental and climatic destruction when we are facing a climate catastrophe. Liz Truss has said developers will be given permission ‘where there is local support’. Various sites... have been identified, some are in Cherwell.

"This Council declared a climate emergency in 2019 and published the Climate Action Framework in 2020 - which includes statements on moving towards net-zero carbon by 2030 – we... need to be seen to be standing by it.”

Cllr Nick Cotter (Ind Ambrosden) said: “It's just a fantasy project. It'll go the way of the rest of the mini budget – it'll just go by the board anyway. It's a complete fantasy project, a crackpot idea from our Prime Minister.

“It was just red meat to the Conservative membership in the country to try and get them on board and get Mrs Truss elected and frankly anything that Jacob Rees Mogg is in favour of, I know I'm against.”

Cllr Nick Cotter who called Liz Truss's plan to reverse a ban on fracking as 'a crackpot idea'

Cllr Barry Wood (Con, Fringford and Heyfords) said: “Would this be popular in this district? I think we can safely say no, so we don't have any difficulty with the motion. The 2019 manifesto for the Conservative Party said we are against fracking ‘unless the science changes’ but the science hasn't changed.”

Cllr Middleton (Green Party, Kidlington East) said: “What we should be looking at is the leak of methane - a gas which is 86 times more potent than co2. So whatever we do, whether or not we're burning it or leaking it into the atmosphere... we're going to be making the situation worse.

“There isn't enough shale gas anyway in the UK and Europe to change the European market price. We're in the integrated European energy market and our gas is always going to be traded on the open market and sold at the highest bidder.

“The PM thinks that we can get fracking up and running in about six months. Fracking wells can take anything up to five years to be properly generative and they generally only produce gas for about three years, whereas a normal gas well will produce gas for 20 years.”

Cllr Perran Moon who said the UK should concentrate on renewable energy production

Cllr Perran Moon (Lab Banbury Grimsbury and Hightown) said: “Our opportunity to massively increase our renewable energy with onshore wind, offshore wind and down in Cornwall, geothermal, and other opportunities like solar should be significantly increased. There is no argument in favour of fracking around our energy and self sufficiency.”