Friends of the Earth have created a site where, nationwide, candidates can publicly pledge their opposition to fracking. Ask your local candidates to sign up! You can do this quickly and easily via the link below. https://www.foe.co.uk/act/ask-your-election-candidates-make-frack-free-promise By bringing up the issue of fracking with our candidates we can hope that our concern gets fed back up the various parties to HQ. Perhaps leadership of all parties will have a greater awareness that fracking is a vote loser. Ask your candidates to sign the frack free promise: https://www.foe.co.uk/act/ask-your-election-candidates-make-frack-free-promise If you have attended a local hustings, as we have both in Horsham and Haywards Heath, you'd see energy issues are high on the agenda. The Conservatives and UKIP continue to think fracking is a necessary way forward. Why, we ask? A report recently released by doctors and health professionals states: ‘the cumulative impact of many wells can lead to a high level of risk to human health…Emissions of NOx, hydrogen sulphide, formaldehyde, benzene, particulate matter and ozone are the more significant airborne hazards associated with fracking…exposure to diesel fumes or to silica may also cause various conditions and diseases. As well as catalysing development of ground level ozone, methane can combine with particulate matter to form gas field haze which is linked to respiratory disease and other harms.' (p.14 'Health and Fracking' Medact) Fracking is therefore, harmful to both health and the environment. Find the Medact report below: http://www.medact.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/medact_fracking-report_WEB4.pdf The report by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health states: 'Both the European Union and the United Nations Environment Programme have concluded that fracking may result in unavoidable environmental and health impacts even if the gas is extracted properly, and more so if done inadequately. They suggest that even if risk can be reduced theoretically, in practice many accidents from leaky or malfunctioning equipment and bad practices occur regularly.’ (p.8 Shale gas and Fracking: Examining the Evidence.) Fracking cannot be successfully regulated. The same report states: ‘the investment required to deliver 7-8 gigawatts of electricity generation capacity from shale gas would deliver 21GW or 12GW if invested in onshore or offshore wind respectively.’(p.11.) Fracking is not the answer economically. Find the CIEH report below: http://www.cieh.org/WorkArea/showcontent.aspx?id=53520 As Mid-Sussex independent candidate Beki Adam stated at last Tuesday's hustings in Haywards Heath, current policy is more about large corporations influencing policy for their own gain than what is best for the people of this country. The Conservative Party is riddled with those who have vested interests in an outdated fossil fuel industry, that’s why they continue to peddle wild exaggerations about its safety and benefits. Research before you vote! You can check if your candidates have signed the frack free promise on the link below: https://www.foe.co.uk/act/ask-your-election-candidates-make-frack-free-promise Many of our members have now been inspired to get involved in local politics, both at parish level and beyond. Kathryn McWhirter and Beki Adam both became interested in politics through their concern about and research into fracking. They have since visited parliament and delved extensively into the workings of legislation and government. Kathryn now stands for the role of district Councillor (Balcombe and Ardingly ward) and Beki Adam for Mid-Sussex MP.Two other inspirational ladies that have also helped extensively with our campaign stand for election as Green Party candidates: Gillian Maher for Ardingly and Balcombe District Council and Miranda Diboll for Mid-Sussex MP. Good luck to all of them! Finally, for light relief, a view from a NoFiBs member about the hustings in Haywards Heath: 'I was particularly interested in Nicholas Soames’ comments on fracking at the hustings in Haywards Heath last week. A couple of years late, but hey, there’s an election round the corner - and I quote “Cuadrilla… in Balcombe.. it was absolutely grotesque, you can't frack in very built-up areas… there isn't the infrastructure, thousands of trucks thundering through … I would NOT do it in Sussex.” . He then remarked that they should actually start test fracking in the Trough of Bowland in Lancashire. It sadly highlighted how ill informed our politicians are. Not only as Tripadvisor noted, the Trough is the number 1 tourist site in the Lancaster area, it is also a vital water gathering source for thousands of homes. Both of these could be irredeemably damaged by this experimental industry. Sir Nicholas also seems unaware that it’s Cuadrilla that would be “grotesquely" handling the attempts to frack there too….It does seem apparent that these fine old Tory grandees are rather uninterested with the well being of residents and the British countryside, north of Harrods.... and his government dared to call us nimbys!' By a Balcombe resident. If the links to the sites don't function, please copy and paste the information into your browser.