Government urged to scrap 'hugely harmful' plans to fast-track fracking development bids

Ministers have been urged to scrap "hugely harmful" plans to speed up fracking developments that risk worsening strained relationships with local communities.

Cross-party MPs said proposals to deal with fracking applications at a national level would be a backwards step, as it could exacerbate the mistrust between the industry and local residents.

The new measures are intended to turbo-charge decision-making on fracking applications, a process that has drawn criticism from environmentalists and locals due to fears it could cause earthquakes, pollute water supplies and industrialise rural areas.

However a critical new report by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee said there was little evidence it would speed up the planning process.

"Taking decision-making powers away from local planning authorities would be a backward step," said chairman Clive Betts.

"It would remove the important link between fracking applications and Local Plans and be hugely harmful to local democracy and the principles and spirit of localism.

"It is mineral planning authorities that have the knowledge of their areas needed to judge the impacts of fracking, not ministers sitting in Whitehall."

The Labour MP added: "Any move to alter this process also seriously risks worsening the often strained relationship between local residents and the fracking industry.

"The government has failed to provide any justification as to why fracking is a special case and should be included in the regime in contrast to general mineral applications."

Fracking, which involves pumping liquid underground at high pressure to fracture shale rock and release gas, has proved difficult for the government to get off the ground.

Some planning decisions have gone against the industry, and featured angry protests by campaigners opposing the development of wells and other environmental concerns.

The government believes shale development could offer jobs and investment, and help to maintain energy security.

Friends of the Earth campaigner, Tony Bosworth, said: "MPs are right to denounce government plans to make it easier for fracking companies to drill without planning permission and slash the involvement of local people.

"It's absurd that the government wants to apply rules originally designed for harmless activities like putting up a garden shed to include drilling for oil and gas.

"Fracking is highly contentious and bad news for our climate and environment: at the very least local people deserve to have a say."

Daniel Carey-Dawes, senior infrastructure campaigner at the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said the government must heed the warnings in the report and "abandon plans to fast-track fracking".

"Failure to do so risks leading to the industrialisation of our countryside, all for the benefit of an industry that has no environmental, economic or social licence," he said.

The committee demanded a national policy statement to showing that the full impact of plans would be automatically considered.

The government must also spell out how fracking for a fossil fuel sits with UK commitments to tackle climate change, MPs said.

Fracking has previously been banned in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Ken Cronin, Chief Executive, UK Onshore Oil and Gas (UKOOG), welcomed efforts to address the "disappointingly lengthy planning process" and the impact that has on all parties.

But he added: "The report fails to address a main concern of both the industry and local communities, which is the fact that planning applications for even the simplest of wells now take up to 18 months to conclude and that many of the professional planning officers’ recommendations are ignored.

"This leaves communities with uncertainty and local taxpayers with a huge bill to foot, and is against the experience of the previous 10 years where most applications were decided in less than four months and against a statutory timescale of three months."