Anti-fracking campaigners plan Chester march to oppose well test application

The peaceful rally has been arranged by the Frack Free Dee coalition.

It is in response to a planning application, submitted by IGas, to ‘flow test’ a well at their Portside site in Ellesmere Port.

The application will be considered by Cheshire West and Chester Council next Thursday (January 25) at the HQ building in Chester.

Prior to the meeting, which starts at 4pm, protesters will gather at the Town Hall at 3pm before marching through the city to the HQ building. They are inviting anyone who opposes fracking to join them.

More than 2,000 objections have been lodged online over the IGas application.

IGas are looking to explore the area to see if it might ‘flow’ gas or oil, which could be extracted via the controversial method of fracking.

IGas well engineer Kris Bone has previously told the Standard there are currently no plans to carry out hydraulic fracturing at the site.

“It’s a normal well test,” said Mr Bone. “We’ll run into an already drilled well, we’ll perforate a zone of interest and we’ll see whether it flows gas or oil.”

But anti-fracking campaigners say the application will move the well into the second of three stages which lead to fracking.

Frack Free Upton has written to all CWaC councillors to urge them not to put residents and the environment “at risk” from the IGas application.

The company is also in the process of applying for permission to frack for shale gas at its site on Ince Marshes, near Elton. It will be the first fracking application to be submitted in Cheshire West.

Meanwhile, campaigners gathered last Friday outside the field on Duttons Lane in Upton where, two years ago, the anti-fracking protection camp was evicted. Weeks after the eviction, IGas announced they had dropped plans to set up a test drill at the site.

A statement from Frack Free Upton read: “For now, the field is being used for what it should be – farming, not fracking – and it needs to stay that way.”