Bishop Hill Plans coming to fruition
Jan 21, 2015 Energy: gas The tsunami of deception and misinformation that has characterised the greens' response to the prospect of an unconventional oil and gas industry in the UK seems to have had the desired effect:
Fracking should not be allowed to take place at two sites in Lancashire due to concerns about noise and traffic, the council's planning officer has said, in a major blow to the Government's plans for shale gas development.
Proposals by Cuadrilla to drill and frack at Preston New Road and Roseacre Wood should both be refused by councillors at a vote next week, the official said, in documents published on Wednesday.
Fracking at both sites would lead to "unacceptable" levels of noise pollution for neighbouring properties, the planning officer said.
This is pretty remarkable stuff. Preston New Road (here) is a field next to an A-road. The idea that the noise levels will be unacceptable is patently absurd.
Reader Comments (80)
Good point, Golf Charlie.
The worst environmental vandal where I grew up was a very left-wing Shire President. He approved cheap, ugly high rise developments all over the beautiful beachfront because it would dilute the conservative vote. He approved the hauling away of miles of sand dunes for construction because it would provide jobs for his mates in the unions.
But, the alternative was the conservatives, who were mostly property developers and real estate agents. Their agendas and mates were different, but the outcomes were not dissimilar.
Johanna, in the UK that is known as JerryMandering, after someone whose name I can't remember!
It is because there is an unknown and unquantifiable risk of something unknown happening that disturbs them, to the point that the world has to shut down.
Jan 21, 2015 at 1:09 PM diogenes
They don't approve of life, obviously.
Noise and traffic?
Yet the UEA are wanting to build a straw burning power station in the middle of Norwich, which will need four trainloads a week of straw pellets.
200,000 tonnes of the stuff will need to be collected from farms all across East Anglia and taken to a processing plant.and all cluttering up country lanes and villages.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/01/21/uea-plans-for-straw-burning-power-station-in-norwich/
BANANAism at its finest.
A car wash in my neighbourhood was delayed for some time due to the complaints that it would be too noisy.
It is literally in between two car garages.
They build and test Tornado (and more) jet engines just up the road. Noise? What noise?
Paul Homewood, in green world trains don't count. Many things written by committed greens even on entirely irrelevant subjects will take the time to explain that road noise is offensive but train noise isn't. When they attempt to explain why this is, it gets truly pathetic.
There is a guide book to the Forth and Clyde Canal which mentions trains running through the Kelvin valley as a positive feature and complains about the noise of traffic on the relatively minor road which parallels it.
Totally disgraceful and biased behaviour by so-called 'impartial journalists' at the beeb. Two planning applications for fracking in Lancashire are recommended for refusal by Council planning officers and it makes national headlines. But when a wind farm site in Shropshire is recommended for refusal, and the company involved bypasses local planning committees by going straight to the Planning Inspectorate, it doesn't even get a mention on the local news on the beeb.
johanna Jan 21, 2015 at 5:18 PM
"Social engineering via "planning" and architectural fads is a terrible thing.!
Never a truer word spoken!
We are witnessing the unintended consequences of well meaning "social engineering".
We need a period of "reverse social engineering"
Instill upon our children that they are in the classroom at the behest of one person, and one person alone, the teacher!
Instill upon every adult that they, and they alone are responsible for everything they do and everything that happens to them!
Simplistic and impossible I know, but unless they become basic aims, and they are sure not at present, we will be subject to more and more "planning and architectural fads" in attempt to solve "societal ills" - bollocks!
Time to remind planners, architects and our offspring what we expect of them.
TerryS:
Francis Egan claims that the "unacceptable" noise is "as quiet as a library" or a fridge.
I find Nick Grealy's analysis interesting:
http://www.nohotair.co.uk/index.php/57-content/front-page/3222-shale-catastrophe-for-friends-of-the-earth
He points out that on all the usual fact free issues, the greenies lost. The noise and traffic issues are nonsense: I've stood in a field the other side of the road from Cuadrilla's drilling site on the Preston New Road, and listened to the aircraft from Wharton and Blackpool Airport buzzing and roaring overhead, while looking at the
big derrickBlackpool Tower in the distance. I presume the Blackpool and District Canine Society will now have to find a new home just so the associated noise and traffic doesn't disturb the countryside - oops! I see they have:http://www.blackpooldogshow.com/#!
Blackpool Airport has been closed due to bankruptcy... But has just reopened ..News Perhaps there might be some commercial flights in March.
These days.. Greens are rejoicing, but I'm sensing a possible backlash and they'll be a large anti-green vote block.
That Nick Grealy blog says 'tough titty FOE, the plannees didnt uphold any of your ecological complaints'
- However he glosses over this line
" At Roseacre Wood, the planners said Cuadrilla had not provided information on protected species that had been requested. The application for that site could not be granted until it measures to protect great crested newts had been provided. "
There is a certain amount of nimbyism here though as well as anti-industry propaganda. People worry that the value of their homes will decrease further while I'd have thought the opposite: It's very possible that Blackpool or Preston could become the new Aberdeen. But of course we'll get HS2 whether the noise affects us or not because the government has mandated that it is for the greater good regardless of local objections. Seems like Cuadrilla just hasn't offered enough sweeteners to the council - ie jobs, community gifts etc.
It all should work out - people that freeze to death are very quiet.
How strange, just across the road we have work going on to revamp a primary school, two years so far and they are nowhere near finished. Now they have decided to demolish one of the buildings. We get contractors and heavy lorries day after day. The car park is closed so the teachers have parked their cars all over the estate although the roads are not suitable for on road parking and is a bus route. I complained to the Council, especially citing the traffic problemds there would be. Buit as good "liberal democrats" they just went ahead. It seems that Lancashire CC have the same attitude...sod the people.
They keep going on about earthquakes. The study done by the UKGS concluded that the earthquake in question COULD have been caused by fracking but this is not solid evidence that it was. There are many causes of earthquakes and fracking is way down that list. Most UK quakes are caused by movement of unknown faults. Seismic monitoring in the uk has increased over the past 40years so quakes will be detected more easily giving the false impression of fracking causing them.
It's fascinating that everyone is treating this as a done deal. It isn't.
The media are reporting (gleefully) that the planning officers are recommending refusal of the Preston New Road application* without apparently understanding what has happened. (There's a surprise!)
As Nick Grealy points out, quoting Ruth Hayhurst's blog, the planners' report has thrown out every one of the environmentalists' objections. For FoE this is failure on a massive scale, Their argument against fracking is dead in the water. The only two grounds for recommending refusal are traffic and noise and in both instances the planners' case is exceptionally weak. Which is why I am assuming that consent on appeal is almost inevitable even if Cuadrilla cannot persuade the Committee at their meeting that they are at risk of landing themselves with a sizeable bill for mis-applying the planning regulations.
Now that we have seen more details, per Grealy and Hayhurst, the justification for refusal is paper thin and if I were a member of that committee I would be voting for approval since there is always a presumption in favour of development which accords with the Local Plan (which it seems this does). And I would be asking the officers to justify their recommendation.
*Roseacre Wood is slightly different since it involves our friend the great crested newt and the traffic access is considerably more difficult though if you can create passing places on a moor road in the south of Scotland to enable access for a wind farm there is no reason not to do the same in Lancashire for a gas facility.
"as quiet as a library" or a fridge
You should hear my 15 year old fridge...
"Seems like Cuadrilla just hasn't offered enough sweeteners to the council"
Or the locals: http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/hundreds_of_homes_in_syderstone_barmer_and_stanhoe_set_for_100_wind_farm_windfall_1_3921724
Or try this shortened URL: https://tinyurl.com/kxo8re9
Mike Jackson, you are quite right, and I apologise for my presumption.
It does indicate the enthusiasm the BBC has reported the Planning Oficers recommendation, to exert additional pressure on the elected officials.
If the elected officials now approve, contrary to the officer recommendation, this, in itself, I believe, would be grounds for an appeal!
Golf Charlie
Unless there has been a change recently there is no appeal from a decision to consent since there is no appellant with any legal standing, the only two parties to the application being the applicant and the LA. The appeal against refusal is lodged by the "injured party", ie whoever lodged the original application.
It is possible to challenge a council's decision in the courts but only on the grounds that there was a flaw in the process itself (if for example LCC were to grant consent for Roseacre Wood without the legal obligatory safeguards for the newts).
But good luck with that one!
Thanks for that update Mike. Can a decision be called in or challenged to, or by, the Full Council, especially if the Planning Committee decides against the Officers recommendation? My training and background is not planning, but I did get roped in to provide advice on technical matters, rather than procedure or legal, over a decade ago, so I am not up to date.
My understanding is that the full Council always has the power to override decisions of its individual committees though it may depend on the extent to which those committees operate under delegated powers. I would be surprised if a LA were to reverse a planning consent since that could well leave it open to a challenge resulting in costs against the council. Overturning a refusal would be a different matter since, as I said earlier, the objectors (local people, NGOs, etc) and consultees (community councils, roads authorities, water authorities), only have their right to have their views "taken into account".
(And someone is now going to tell me that roads and water authorities have a stronger say than that. Agreed but only where they are making the case that to grant consent would breach some regulation for which they are responsible — I tell you, planning can be a can of worms!)
There were some changes afoot a few years ago (whether in Scotland or England I can't remember, nor whether they actually came to anything) to speed up the appeals process by making the initial appeal to a Council appeals committee.
The next couple of weeks will prove me right. Or wrong. Or both. See how confident I am!
There was a series of programmes early last year called Permission Impossible on BBC2 which followed several cases through the planning process and (amazingly for the BBC) gave a fairly objective account of the planning process which Mike has described above. Although yesterday when it was announced in a radio bulletin that permission had been denied in this case, the announcer could hardly constrain his glee.
Mike Jackson, thank you again! My knowledge on planning is not up to date, and what I did know resulted from being thrown in at the deep end, without a lifejacket. It was a bit of an eye opener!
Now that the Green Luvvies have the ability, to make a Council Officers recommendation to a Planning Committee, newsworthy, on BBC Radio 2 and 4 and elsewhere, is an eye opener, for scarily different reasons!
Is Quadrilla still drilling? Somebody said that the drop in the price of oil will make oil produced by fracking too expensive to compete with oil wells. So perhaps the worry about noise etc is superfluous.
Mariwrcwm, "someone said that..." not a Green Luvvie spreading malicious propaganda was it? The cost of obtaining fuel from fracking will always be cheaper than offshore drilling rigs, and that is before oil has been shipped around the world.
That is why the price has crashed, because the USA is not buying much crude from the middle east, as they are now self sufficient through fracking, for their bulk energy needs. It is as temporary as the current pause in global warming.
It is simple economics. Green Luvvies don't get it, even those with degrees from the London School of Failed Economic Theory. Peak Oil Theory has gone quiet for the time being too.
Couldn't Cuadrilla simply apply to build a wind turbine (gets passed automatically) - and while drilling to create the foundations, accidentally go a bit deeper and - oops - find gas..?
I know - I should have been in politics....
Why government planninng sucks :
- "What is called planning in political rhetoric is the government's suppression of other people's plans...."
- "Perhaps the most fallacious assumption of all is that third parties with neither experience nor expertise can make better decisions...." Thomas Sowell