AN ANTI fracking campaigner has hit back at the minister for energy and climate change after she visited an exploratory site in Warrington.

Andrea Leadsom visited the exploratory coal bed methane IGas site at Doe Green near Penketh on August 6, but Callands resident Peter Roberts has claimed that she was uninformed on the subject of fracking.

Mr Roberts, of Pendine Close, was a founder member of Anti Frack Warrington and help to set up the Woolston protest camp at the town’s other fracking site near the Thelwall Viaduct.

He said: “She didn’t seem to know much about it at all.

“I know a man whose house was damaged by an earthquake measuring 2.3 on the Richter scale due to fracking – I find it funny that she thought jumping off a ladder would give you that reading.

“She didn’t really understand what was happening.

“I’m fed up of people coming to visit Doe Green.

“They see it as a centre of excellence and bring people on jollies but they’re not getting what they wanted or making money.

“The site isn’t making money, it’s not doing anything.”

The process of fracking sees water and chemicals pushed down into a drilled well in order to fracture the ground and extract gas that is trapped under the surface.

But Mr Roberts believes that any gas fracked at the Doe Green site would not benefit the public.

He added: “IGas was going down the pan until they were bankrolled by Ineos.

At the moment their gas is imported from America, so all they want is a cheap feed of energy that they need to make their plastic products.

“It’s not for us, it’s for Ineos.

“There’s no need for this – it’s done for monetary reasons.”

Mr Roberts said that his primary concerns were earth tremors, water pollution and the effect on traffic and roads, but he is also worried that fracking could cause serious long term damage and goes against the democratic process.

He said: “The law allows companies to place charges beneath anybody’s property and then leave anything they want to there.

“They want to dump radioactive waste in the ground – they put this stuff in stainless steel containers but the radioactive material will outlive the containers.

“The government has said that if local councils can’t make up their mind about fracking then the government will agree it which takes away our democracy.”