A PUBLIC meeting has been called in East Leake to give residents – and those from neighbouring villages – the opportunity to comment on the possibility of fracking taking place in the area.
The meeting takes place in St Mary’s Parish Church on Monday night next week, November 16 and will start at 7pm.
The meeting has been called by the East Leake Plan Group - set up to produce the community plan which fed through to the neighbourhood plan – who were recently asked to send a representative to a meeting held by Frack-free Nottingham and the Friends of the Earth.
Mr Brenda Lewis, one of the organisers, says at that meeting they were informed of the new licences which the government was giving to companies to explore for shale gas and oil.
“The villages covered by licence SK42 include East Leake, Costock, Bunny, West Leake and Gotham,” says Mrs Lewis, adding that initially they had thought of having a meeting where both sides would be presented – anti and pro fracking -- but realised this would end up as a long meeting.
“To get going quickly -- as the licence has already been awarded -- we decided to ask Frack Free Nottingham to speak. There will be a 20 minute film followed by a question and answer session.”
Jenny de Villiers, chairman of the Community Plan Group, will chair the meeting and will aim to keep it as balanced as possible given the group is against fracking.
Says Mrs Lewis: “Our hope is that in the near future we can get a group who are not opposed to fracking to speak and thereby widen the debate. There could then be a meeting where both sides are represented. Basically it is one step at a time.
“We feel we need to get up to speed quickly as events will move very quickly from now on. The Infrastructure Bill going through parliament at the moment will cut the consultation time considerably and we need to know more about fracking to get the best debate going and to get the best for the villages,” she adds.
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