Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,874
I hope for the various parishes involved that KCC will not disregard your concerns because of ill advised comments from splinter groups.
Sadly it is always "little communities" that are targeted simply because in relative terms not so many people are likely to be affected.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
Keith - I didn't bring politics into this debate, it was Labour - by distribiting a leaflet which implied that KKC planning officers were corrupt in assisting/helping the applicants. This is normal practice, whoever the applicant is.
Tracey is right in her approach to this.
Roger
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
The meeting on the 16th. has four people vehemently opposed to fracking despite claims that there is to be no fracking in the areas affected by methane exploration.
Ian Crane, who apparently used to work in the oil industry, has some interesting views on the world (or at least new world order and other such matters) and is, of course, opposed.
Someone from a rather hurriedly put together organisation called "Conservatives against fracking" who turns out to be merely a local resident of Balcombe is also set to speak.
An anti-fracking hydrologist who has links to CPRE is also going to speak alongside some person from East kent against fracking.
Is that it? Surely not I hear you say. There must be representatives from interests who are involved in the industry who will be able to explain their side of the debate.
Confused? I certainly am.
Guest 1694- Registered: 24 Feb 2016
- Posts: 1,087
The Tilmanstone test bore is situated behind the industrial units on Pike Road pretty much adjacent to the filled in mining shafts. The bore diameter is a good deal narrower than the shafts and the potential for damage to the aquifer from drilling at this site is almost non-existent (it sits right on top of the mine shafts which already go all the way down to the coal seam.through the strata where the water is at). The approach road is already used daily by multiple HGVs to and from the industrial units and the projected additional traffic (Approx. 30 HGV and 36 LGV movements over 36 weeks) will not even be noticed. There is no protected habitat or rare species on the site and it is no closer to residential dwellings than the winding gear of the old coal mine was - projected noise levels are lower than those that were emitted by the old coal mine gear.
The Coal seams that they are drilling down to are known to be friable and already well fractured (allowing free flow of gas once water pressure has been reduced).
Reg, your description of fracking is well known, nothing new, and exactly what we don't need if we are to have a sensible discussion with Coastal and bring pressure to bear on them to work to a higher standard of safety and industrial probity, especially at the sites which are not co-located with former mine shafts. I trust that you will remember the test bore in the field between Eythorne and Shepherdswell (you can take a look at the little pipe that's there just as a reminder of how small the residual is) and how little disruption (without protesters) it caused and the total lack of aquifer damage that resulted from it. Perhaps, bearing that in mind will help to concentrate on legitimate questions and concerns.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
that is tilmanstone explained, "shepherdswell" website goes ballistic over ancient woodlands being lost - which sounds like a gross exaggeration to me.
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
# 144 Thanks for your contribution.You appear to be an expert on everything under the sun and regularly
blow your trumpet,in more ways than one.The people we are in contact with are experts in their own fields
and have serious concerns regarding the drilling application.Best we keep to our day jobs on serious matters
such as this one.
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
It would have been good if the producers of the film were able to show real and empirical evidence of any dangers involved in the fracking process. Seemed like an opportunity for the film makers to put their side of the issue with no regard to what happens in the real world.
Burning tap water, for example, has been possible well before any fracking was put into practice. This is purely natural and is due to the high methane content in the ground.
Other factoids which run along similar lines featured in the much discredited film "Gaslands" have been debunked by those who have examined it's claims.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
146, Reg, assuming you are preaching what you practice, you must have a good many day jobs.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Guest 1694- Registered: 24 Feb 2016
- Posts: 1,087
Hi Reg, I am no expert on this, and do not pretend to be, but am prepared to spend time reading up on the subject, look at available records from what was the coal board and from the water companies, consult with a mining engineer, take some time to look at data driven, objective, academic reports, spend some of my time and money calling up and speaking with people and organisations who have experienced this type of gas extraction, both here in the UK and overseas and who are not running to some environmental agenda. I'm also capable of applying common sense and historical knowledge/experience of the impacts of coal mining and previous test bores to discern hyperbole driven by an 'agenda' from reasonable objection on the grounds of safety and security of water supply.
This subject is very important to me (as it is for you) as it directly impacts my home village and so of course I am going to study the detail as much as possible to arrive at as reasoned and sensible conclusion as any lay person is able to with the information, stripped of scary stories, that is available in the public domain.
As a layman I am merely writing out the results of my own findings after having conducted research for myself over the last several months since Balcombe hit the headlines. It was through the research that I was doing out of curiosity as to what the fuss was about at Balcombe that I saw, pretty much as they were published, the applications for the test bores in East Kent.
To date, the reading and talking that I have done leads me to a different conclusion to yourself Reg, particularly with regard to the Tilmanstone bore. Extraction however is a different matter and, given the history of contamination during the coal mining era, we need to be very sure that the same mistakes are not repeated with regard to water supply today and that the highest standards of industrial probity and safety are observed.
Just as different experts within the same field can have entirely different opinions about the same matter, so can lay people. We don't have to be experts to exercise discernment, study existing sites in this country or to develop an opinion
What concerns me most is that a fracking based protest and campaign will cause immeasurable harm to our ability to be listened to and properly heard when it comes to raising any objections that we may have on the actual substance of the applications in hand and then again later with regard to extraction our position could have become so undermined by unrelated (or only loosely associated) scare stories that the extracting companies and national authorities will find it easier to drive roughshod over legitimate concerns and will fail to properly engage in meaningful conversation.
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Fracking faces land rights challenge from Lancashire farmer and Greenpeace
Andrew Pemberton joins forces with green group, saying he fears contamination of water
A Lancashire dairy farmer has joined forces with Greenpeace to launch a challenge to fracking in England.
The environmental charity is working with people in Lancashire and the West Sussex village of Balcombe whose homes are near sites where the energy company Cuadrilla is looking at using hydraulic fracturing to extract shale gas and oil.
Andrew Pemberton, who supplies milk to 3,000 households in Lytham on the Lancashire coast, said he had joined the campaign because he would lose his livelihood if the local water became contaminated.
The divisive technology of fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, has been associated with air and water pollution, radioactive waste and the despoliation of vast tracts of land, as well as methane emissions, in the US, where it was pioneered.
Cuadrilla, which is currently the UK's only company engaged in fracking, has suffered a series of setbacks. Last week the firm announced it was is closing one of its five exploration sites, at Anna's Road in Lancashire, citing concerns about wintering birds.
Greenpeace's case is based on fracking companies' plans to drill horizontally under people's homes; something the group says would be unlawful without permission.
"Under English law, if you own land, your rights extend to all the ground beneath it. That means if someone drills under your home without permission it is trespass," said Greenpeace senior campaigner Anna Jones, citing a supreme court case from 2010 which ruled against an energy company called Star Energy UK.
Jones added: "To avoid being liable for trespass, drillers would need landowners' permission. And this case is about people explicitly declaring they do not give that permission. This will make it extremely difficult for companies to move ahead with any horizontal drilling plans.
Full Story Guardian."
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
The Guardian again. Groan.
Greenpeace do like to spread themselves don't they? If they're not bothering the shipping lanes there they are swinging off the side of a power plant, complaining about fracking whilst peering into their crystal ball foretelling of the end of the world because of the weather.
Don't donate to these clowns it only encourages them.
Oh! No need to donate when you consider the hundreds of millions they've already taken off us all via the taxes we pay.
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,874
Reg, that is virtually the same report that Brian posted, yet another cut and paste from you.
This thread is NOT about fracking it is about the affect on local villages of the proposed drilling, you seem to be the only one who keeps raising the fracking subject.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Jan having been in the Oil and Petro chem industry for three decades when the drilling results
are reported it is the Market place that decides what will be extracted...the initial planning application
is easily altered to extract the biggest payback.My former paymasters are ruthless,they are not concerned
about the mess they leave behind.
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
The Shepherdswell newsletter is now on the website and facebook page.
It can be viewed and downloaded here:
http://www.keepshepherdswellwell.org/newsletter/
Listen to the Kent anti-fracking song.
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
On that link you posted, Reg, I see lots written speculating about the dangers of methane extraction but absolutely no evidence. We're all still none the wiser on the issue.
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
But that`s normal for you PhilpP.
Guest 977- Registered: 27 Jun 2013
- Posts: 1,031
Reg Hansell wrote:My former paymasters are ruthless,they are not concerned about the mess they leave behind
I would have left employers like that before 30 days were up, never mind staying with them for 30 years.
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,874
I am a bit lost here which is hardly surprising
Reg wrote......."the drilling results are reported it is the Market place that decides what will be extracted...the initial planning application
is easily altered to extract the biggest payback".........
How can they alter the "initial application application" that has been approved for one thing and then change it without going through planning again where a council has the right to refuse consent and appeals could also be refused.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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