Statement: Hydraulic Fracturing

Cinderford Town Council would be totally against Hydraulic Fracturing for Unconventional Hydrocarbons.

While we are led to believe that no shale beds lie underneath the Forest of Dean, the fact remains that drilling could take place for Coal Seam Methane if licences were issued, which of course would be subject to the planning process at Gloucestershire County Council.

These type of operations could compromise Cinderford’s drinking water supplies, which comes from the Buckshaft Pumping Station, on which Severn Trent Water has just spent £500,000. for new UV facilities. This pumping facility also supplies water to parts of the Town of Lydney.

The water is pumped from a vast subterranean system in the Iron Mines of Shakemantle, Perseverance, Buckshaft, St. Annal’s and Westburybrook. These iron measures lie very close to the coal measures. The Forest of Dean coal field closed mainly for economic reasons because of geological faulting; the seams here are much closer to the surface than those in neighbouring South Wales. Such operations could also compromise our Free Mining Heritage and worsen the already large risk posed by Radon Gas in this former mining area.

Cinderford Town Council fully believes that the Forest of Dean does not, for the above reasons, lend itself in any way to this type of unconventional hydrocarbon exploration.

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