Fears for Welsh communities as Reform prepares to lift fracking ban

Emily Price

Reform UK has refused to respond to questions about whether energy companies will be given the green light to frack in Wales if the party comes to power at the next Senedd election.

The method of mining gas and oil from shale rock has effectively been banned in Wales since 2018.

It involves drilling into the earth and injecting a high-pressure mixture of water, sand and chemicals at a rock layer to release shale gas.

In England, a moratorium on fracking was temporarily lifted when Liz Truss was Prime Minister before being reinstated again under Rishi Sunak’s government.

Bans

This week, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage told energy firms to get ready to “drill, baby drill” as the party would lift any bans immediately were they to enter office.

Fracking became a major issue in Wales a decade ago when the Tory government announced licences in many parts of the UK for companies to extract gas through the controversial method.

Early tests in Blackpool revealed that fracking caused mini earthquakes with 120 tremors recorded during drilling at the site – including one tremor which lasted almost 100 hours.

In 2014, protests were sparked in Wrexham when an appeal to test drill for the underground fossil fuel at a site at Commonwood near Borras was given the go ahead.

The drilling would have potentially disturbed the seams below Gresford Colliery, where more than 260 men and boys were entombed after the infamous 1934 colliery disaster.

A protest camp was established on the site and supported by local residents.

It eventually led to the planned fracking being abandoned with a moratorium imposed in 2019.

‘Financially negligent’

The current Welsh Government says they will not use their powers to grant drilling licences in Wales.

But Reform UK – which could overtake Welsh Labour in Cardiff Bay next year – believes it’s worth going after the potential energy resource.

The party says it would be “grossly financially negligent to a criminal degree” to leave the energy resource underground and not to extract it.

Plaid Cymru councillor Carrie Harper who represents the Queensway ward in Wrexham warned that drilling in north Wales is “an accident waiting to happen”.

She said: “It’s a decade since local campaigners saw off the threat of fracking in our communities. The combined protests forced a U-turn by the Tory government, who were very keen on this method of extraction. That wasn’t surprising given the funding they were getting from fossil fuel companies.

“So it’s no surprise to hear that Reform, who are mainly ex-Tory politicians also dependent on fossil fuel companies for their funding, are now pushing for fracking in our communities.

“Farage will be unaware of the mass protests that accompanied the drilling locally and the extent to which this will potentially impact communities right across Deeside and Wrexham.

“The original licensing areas extended from Mostyn on the Dee Estuary right down to the Maelor near Penley.”

‘Volatile’

Cllr Harper added: “This is drilling into the unknown. They’ll be drilling through an aquifer, drilling into old coal seams and workings with volatile pockets of methane.

“They will be using a cocktail of chemicals and fracturing the rock under high water pressure to free the gas – it’s an accident waiting to happen and it could happen on our doorstep.

“The proposal a decade ago to drill would have impacted on the remains of those men and boys lost in the Gresford Colliery disaster – that’s not acceptable and Reform should be told that fracking is not welcome here.”

We asked Reform UK if the party would look to lift the fracking ban in Wales if it came to power at next year’s Senedd election.

We also asked: “If the party allows companies to frack in Wales would any account be taken into local opposition to this – or would residents and local authorities be overruled?”

Reform UK did not respond to our media request.

It comes after the party faces criticism over an unprecedented move to impose a media blackout on local journalists in Nottinghamshire after a clip of a Reform councillor struggling to answer questions went viral.