Department for Energy and Climate Change written question – answered at on 6 November 2014.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what his policy is on requiring companies to inform people about fracking under their home or land.
Companies seeking planning permission to exploit oil or natural gas are legally required to give notice of an application to owners or tenants of any of the land to which the application relates. If the development of a particular piece of land is underground only, the company is required to publish a notice in a local newspaper and put up a local site notice in each parish or ward in which the land is situated. Mineral Planning Authorities advertise and consult upon the planning applications that they receive.
The Environment Agency also publishes details of applications by companies for environmental permits on their website for public consultation. The onshore oil and gas industry, under UK Onshore Oil and Gas guidelines, has also agreed to publish information on its website; for example, industry will publish all chemicals that are used in hydraulic fracturing by composition and maximum concentration.
We are currently legislating to provide the right to use deep-level land for the purposes of exploiting petroleum and deep geothermal energy. As part of this, industry has committed to establish a public notification system to notify communities of works taking place at depth, outlining the area of underground land accessed, and the payment to be made to landowners under whose land the right of use is exercised. We are including in the Infrastructure Bill a reserve power for a statutory notification scheme, if industry commitments to a voluntary notification scheme are not met.
Yes0 people think so
No0 people think not
Would you like to ask a question like this yourself? Use our Freedom of Information site.