Public Campaigns do influence Government Policy

  ('Fracking' Licence (PEDL) map)

UPDATE: For other public involvement blogs see: Unprecedented Public Participation for JSP Local Plan Examination, and NSC Statement of Community Involvement .

-----

This Consultation Institute article indicates how public opinion and related campaign groups can directly influence government policy that is affecting their community:

"The government has removed a paragraph from the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) intended to support the extraction of “unconventional hydrocarbons” following a High Court ruling earlier this year which found that a public consultation on the policy was flawed ...

 

... The paragraph was added to the NPPF as part of revisions to the document published last year. But in March, environmental campaign group Talk Fracking successfully challenged the new paragraph at the High Court."

"What does the Talk Fracking judgement mean for my community and current/future fracking applications?

On the 14 May 2019, High Court judge, Mr Justice Dove, issued a judgement which declared that the ... newly-added paragraph of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) (... relating to onshore oil and gas development, including fracking) was in fact, unlawful. ... The inclusion of [this] paragraph ... directly manoeuvred councils towards accepting fracking simply because policy said so ...

 

The judgement from the Talk Fracking case means that anyone objecting to fracking applications will be able to do so on grounds of climate change “by referring to the latest scientific evidence” and other technical points of objection and evidence ... An authority who is considering a fracking application could refuse it on solid, scientific evidence and arguments based on climate change grounds." (Legal briefing)

----

For more information on how the NPPF and other goverment policy affects Bleadon see here.

Also, some other newspaper articles and BOB's fracking page.

Link to previous BOB fracking post on Bleadon's first public fracking meeting held 11 June 2019.