Local authorities in the UK who play a significant part in deciding the future of fracking in the country have made indirect investments in energy companies who would be responsible for drilling and extraction projects, the Independent reports.
Councils that have been picked out as responsible for potential fracking areas have assets in firms by way of their pension funds, according to the report published late on Sunday.
The newspaper pointed out that Lincolnshire County Council’s
pension fund has 1.9 million pounds ($3.2 million) invested in
French company, Total. Total was the first major oil company to
make incursions into Britain with the intention of seeking shale
gas profit.
The company has a 30 million pound ($50 million) holding in two
exploration ventures in the northeastern county.
West Sussex County Council has some indirect investments in both
Cuadrilla and3.5 million pounds in Centrica. The southern county
was the site of ongoing protests in Balcombe last summer, which
residents reported ‘scarred’ and ‘divided’ the village’s
inhabitants after considerable opposition erupted when Cuadrilla
announced proposals to drill in the county.
The council stated that its investment equated to some 0.001
percent of the total value of its £2.45bn pension fund. “Any
indirect investments made by the pension fund’s investment
managers would not have any influence at all in determining a
planning application,” the council said in a statement to
the paper.
Last Wednesday, Cuadrilla Resources said that it is continuing to
consult with residents on proposals for two shale gas exploration
sites in the Fylde area of Lancashire in northwest England.
The Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF) invests on behalf of
Salford and Trafford councils. The area is being tested currently
for shale gas by a company named IGas. The IGas group was
invested in by the Henderson group, which itself has GMPF as a
shareholder.
Each body contacted by the paper maintained that the investments
did not constitute a conflict of interest. However, environmental
activists have voiced outrage.
“It’s a worrying discovery. Fracking is already a dirty
enough industry without getting mired in the murky waters of
conflicts of interest. Councils must disinvest and show local
voters that they can be trusted to put the interests of their
constituents first when making crucial decisions on fracking
applications,” Simon Clydesdale, energy campaigner for
Greenpeace UK, told the Independent.
Lincolnshire’s assistant director of resources, David Forbes,
stated: “The pension scheme operates within a set of clear
investment principles and is overseen by the pension committee,
which makes its decisions independently from the county
council.”