Victorious Biscathorpe campaigners warned of fresh fight against fracking

A long-running battle to prevent American oil and gas company Egdon Resources to drill and test within the village at one of the most attractive beauty spots in the Lincolnshire Wolds was won just before Christmas.

Only months before a public inquiry was due to he held, Egdon withdrew its appeal against a decision by the High Court to block the proposal.

Campaign groups SOS Biscathorpe and Fossil Fuel Free Lincolnshire hailed it as a victory in its over-arching war on climate change and fossil fuels.

However, it has now emerged that the county’s mayor, Dame Andrea Jenkyns, who represents Reform UK, has held talks with Egdon, reiterating her support for shale gas extraction, or fracking, which is temporarily banned in the UK at present.

Ms Jenkyns has previously expressed support for lifting the ban, famously declaring “drill baby, drill”, and has spoken out against renewable energy “eyesores” such as solar farms and pylons.

Her meetings with Egdon were disclosed by ‘The Guardian’ newspaper last week after a Freedom Of Information request.

They apparently happened last year as Egdon continued to mull over the discovery of a huge shale gas field in the Gainsborough Trough, thought to be potentially worth £110 billion. According to ‘The Guardian’, Ms Jenkyns asked the company how she could help.

The news has dismayed Fossil Fuel Free Lincolnshire, whose spokesperson Amanda Suddaby described the prospect of renewed fracking as “massively disappointing” and warned it could cause serious harm to local communities.

She said: “A fracking moratorium is currently in place for very good reasons – the environmental risks, the threat to public health and the impact on local infrastructure,” Suddaby said.

“The government has also committed to making that moratorium permanent. There are growing calls for any future legislation to go further and include a comprehensive ban on all forms of hydraulic fracturing.

“Therefore, those seeking to revive fracking face a significant political, legal and public hurdle.”

Suddaby continued: “For the areas where the fracking would take place, it would be horrendous.

“We only have to look at what happened in Lancashire to see the enormous lorries, the horrendous traffic, the pollution that comes with it, the chemicals that are used, the enormous waste of water and the earthquakes.

“Where it has happened in this country, it has been a complete nightmare for local people. I think it would be absolutely devastating for local communities.”

Fossil Fuel Free Lincolnshire (FFFL) grew out of the county’s Frack Free movement and now acts as an umbrella group for several local campaigns opposing oil and gas extraction, including that at Biscathorpe.

“We took that fight to the High Court and won,” Suddaby said. “When the company appealed against it, there should have been a public inquiry this April. But after seeing our carefully researched evidence, Egdon withdrew.”

She stressed that FFFL’s experiences mean community campaigners are organised and prepared if fracking proposals resurface.

“I think there would be strong local opposition,” she said. “The anti-fracking movement has come quite a long way, and I’m confident that it would mobilise quickly to oppose it.”

Suddaby also rejected claims that fracking would bring down energy bills or provide meaningful local benefits, including jobs.

“There would be no bonuses for Lincolnshire,” she said. “The only bonuses would be the money made by the fracking company involved.

“The reason we have the moratorium on fracking is because it was found to be unsafe and unviable. It’s too dangerous."

Campaigners are now urging local and county politicians to listen to independent climate scientists rather than industry voices.

Suddaby added: “It would be great if people in office listened to properly qualified scientific experts who have no agenda and no axe to grind and no money to make but are just presenting scientific facts.

“If Ms Jenkyns and her colleagues really care about the Lincolnshire communities they represent, they need to listen very carefully to the arguments against fracking which led to the current moratorium.

“They need to consult local people after setting out clearly in public all the impacts that fracking would have on those communities before pursuing further discussions with industry operators whose only interest in Lincolnshire is extracting profit from it.”

Ms Jenkyns has long been sceptical about net zero and is an unpaid non-executive director of the Net Zero Watch group, which “highlights the serious implications of expensive and poorly considered climate-change policies on the British taxpayer”.

The group “scrutinises policies, establishes what they really cost, determines who will have to pay, and explores affordable alternatives.”