THE SOUTH Downs National Park Authority has joined a growing clamour questioning the Parliamentary vote to allow fracking in national parks.

Alongside environmental groups, the authority (SDNPA) says an earlier commitment to ban the drilling for oil and gas in underground beds of shale, or fracking, in national parks, has been abandoned.

SDNPA chief executive Trevor Beattie said: “We are disappointed the vote in Parliament did not support the Government’s clear commitment to ban fracking under national parks, by making it possible to apply for permission to frack under our precious landscape. Landscape is not skin deep.

“As the regulations approved by the vote only cover what happens below ground, we now await the results of a government consultation on surface development restrictions in national parks, which will determine restrictions on surface drilling.”

Shale beds extend from Kent through East Hampshire along to the Dorset coast, and locally Hampshire County Council (HCC) will determine applications to frack.

An HCC spokesman said: “Currently there is no unconventional shale gas development (fracking) in Hampshire, and any such development will need planning permission.

“Applications will be determined against the policies in the Hampshire Minerals and Waste Plan.

“A developer would also need to have Environment Agency permission and have their plans scrutinised by the Health and Safety Executive.”

The MPs’ decision of December 16 has also angered the Campaign for National Parks (CNP) pressure group.

Chief executive Fiona Howie said: “We don’t know what the longer term effects of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) would be on these protected areas, so, given this uncertainty, the Government should have kept to its word and prevented fracking in these areas at any depth.”