IN the autumn my colleagues and I voted unanimously in favour of a motion I put forward raising the council’s concerns over hydraulic fracturing in the Forest Of Dean with the government.

Councillors also requested that its scrutiny committee further considers the potential impacts of unconventional gas exploration and extraction.

Among the main concerns identified by the motion were: the potential impact in an area significantly covered by an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), the importance of protecting local water supplies, the potential impact on the local transport network, the proposed close proximity to the district’s hamlets, villages and market towns, the potential risk to underground workings such as free mines, the potential impact on local air quality and biodiversity and the potential impact on tourism and recreation.

This motion was passed, as I have said, unanimously and I recall the Cabinet member for environment and the Green Party’s representative both speaking more  eloquently than I ever  could hope to  have on a subject that many people in the Forest find, at best, extremely concerning.

There are also many people in the Forest with much more expertise on the entire subject so please excuse my ignorance if I continue to use the simplistic term of ‘fracking’ for all such ventures.

We also moved to lobby our MP, received the relevant assurances from his office  and then  had the debacle at Gloucestershire County Council of a similar motion apparently being ‘kicked into the long grass’ (a hateful term but one which can be heard all too often in any corridor of perceived power) by Lib Dems with Conservative assistance as they sat on their hands on the grounds, I am told, of a political nature.

One thing my motion did prove as far as I was concerned was that no matter what colour our flag might be, when it came down to it and despite all our differences everyone in that chamber was there to do the best they could for the Forest of Dean.

You only need to look at the shenanigans at county level on this subject to see how rare an event that was.

Not everyone is on the county planning committee and unable to make a choice known.

Even now I don’t write as a representative of the Labour Party but as one for the people of the ward I cover at district and parish level.

The government has issued a licence to a company to explore the possibility of fracking in and under the Forest of Dean.

This was announced on the day we were all celebrating the success of the Star Wars film , the Forest’s role within it and hearing how valuable that may be to the Forest economy and tourism industry.

Eight days before Christmas – talk about burying bad news.

Now I happen to quite like our MP. Politically all wrong of course and we have many differences  but a decent chap who I have sat round a table with many times and someone who I know shares a vision we have for the future of the Forest.

He and his staff are always polite, they always try to fulfil their commitments and have backed West Dean’s ambitions for Five Acres despite me being, I am sure, a complete pain in the neck to them on the subject.

I fully expect from them  the continued ‘there is no need to worry about fracking’ mantra from his office. He can talk to his colleagues.

I know, and like  many county councillors, I am sure even the Lib Dem chap who scuppered the motion did it for  honest reasons.

I fully expect from them the ‘no need to worry, we can deal with it when it happens’ line to continue.

And maybe they are right. They are all a lot more politically “savvy” than I after all.

But  if they were wrong there might be a lot of Foresters  seen standing in Speech House field waving placards  or somewhere similar.

There may be Forest folk standing in  a road trying to block drilling machines being delivered to various sites.

If the latter should prove to be the case  then I am afraid our MP will need to decide where his bread and butter is.

Is it here with his constituents getting his shoes dirty in a  field or is it in Downing Street?

The day, heaven forbid, that the first drill bit goes under any Forest of Dean land, I fully expect all the county councillors who could have backed the motion to prevent fracking in the Forest of Dean, but chose not to or sat on their hands will resign the same day.

That mass admission of  guilt may not make the news however as the same day, the day that despite all the assurances fracking exploration begins in the Forest, The Chief Whip will have resigned his Government post in protest at the treatment of the Constituency and this Land that he represents.

– Cllr Tim Gwilliam (Lab), Forest of Dean District Council, Berry Hill.