An online petition against fracking off the coast of Wirral, dismissed by local Conservative councillors as a “pathetic attempt at public manipulation”, has so far amassed more than 70,000 signatures.
It was launched a week ago by Labour Party activist Gail Jenkinson, after Prime Minister Liz Truss lifted the ban on extracting shale gas.
The newly elected PM has pledged it will only go ahead in areas where there is local consent, but there is no detail yet of what this would mean.
It is almost a decade since a conditional licence was granted for fracking off the Dee estuary – sparking a huge campaign which eventually led to it being dropped.
Gail Jenkinson said: “Our shoreline would be devastated by fracking. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a process that uses high-pressure fluid injections to shatter rock formations and extract natural gas.
“Fracking has been blamed for leaking millions of tonnes of methane. It is not my idea of acceptable.
“It will send out huge energy waves, causing earthquakes for miles around, weakening the fault lines with which UK geology is riddled, weakening the ground on which our houses are built bit by bit every time, affecting it forever.”
West Kirby and Hoylake Cllrs Andrew Gardner, Tony Cox and Alison Wright have described the basis for the petition as “totally untrue” arguing that “there’s nothing like enough gas under us for anyone to think they’d like to get it out”.
The petition can be found at: https://chng.it/gVJvbsm7Dk