Ban 'Fracking' gas extraction in the UK

[hobby]

Ah Greenpeace, that source of accurate information that do things for the good of everyone... (please note that was said in a very sarcastic tone - I wouldn't trust what they say is "fact" any more than the Oil Company)

I also think that they are confusing "land" owner and "home" owner, the former may well have rights to whatever is below the surface and be able to control it's extraction, the latter, as far as I'm aware, doesn't...

[UKJeeper]

Maybe greenpeace should pop over and stop any Russian fracking plans. The Russians LOVE greenpeace....

[JPB]

....I also think that they are confusing "land" owner and "home" owner, the former may well have rights to whatever is below the surface and be able to control it's extraction, the latter, as far as I'm aware, doesn't...

Under English law, maybe not( ), but under Scottish law the freeholder has the mineral rights. Saying that, even on the English side most homeowners have their freehold with the exception of those in blocks of flats who only hold the lease.

[tractorman]

I'm not 100% sure if landowners have rights to what's under the ground - I seem to remember things like coal mines were paying their "dues" to whoever owned the mineral rights - in much of our fair county, the owner was/is Lord Lonsdale, who also owned some rights under the Irish Sea! His ancestors would own most of the land in the county, though much has been sold off in our area and the current owners (mostly farmers or their banks) are the freeholders of the land and buildings, but not of the mineral rights.

Not that owning the land has much effect when faced with "Environmental Bodies"! Some local farmers own parts of peat mosses - the land that was too wet to drain hundreds of years ago, when the farms were split up. They don't do anything to it - apart from making sure drains run free and, on occasion, tip waste crops/grass cuttings etc on it (it feeds birds and what's left decomposes within a year!). One moss has been placed under a management scheme and they had decided to cut down all the birch trees (that have established themselves over the years) and went to the farmers with a piece of paper for them to sign the management rights to the "Government Body". One friend, who disagreed with the plan said he'd refuse to sign up. He was told that it didn't matter if he refused - they would take control anyway! Another friend is well pleased - he now gets £13K a year for doing nothing to the land he and his ancestors have been doing nothing with for 70 odd years!

[jimmyybob]

Is it china or hongkong i cant remember but somewhere in that direction the home owner owns the space below ground as well as the air space above.

[hobby]

....I also think that they are confusing "land" owner and "home" owner, the former may well have rights to whatever is below the surface and be able to control it's extraction, the latter, as far as I'm aware, doesn't...

Under English law, maybe not( ), but under Scottish law the freeholder has the mineral rights. Saying that, even on the English side most homeowners have their freehold with the exception of those in blocks of flats who only hold the lease.

Now I'm going back to my days as a Secrities clerk in a bank in Scotland, so I may well be a bit rusty on this... The equivalent of Freehold in Scotland is Fuehold and in my days up there most properties were that rather than leased, which included flats (it was unusual to get freehold flats in England at the time)... My understanding is that most land in Scotland is actually owned by several very large landowners and the Fue relates to a nominal fee paid to said landowners. So in Scotland the owner of the mineral rights would be them, not the "homeowner"...

FUE: "(Law) Scots Law a right to the use of land in return for a fixed annual payment (feu duty)" From an online dictionary...

The way I read the use of the word "homeowner" in the earlier post would be as someone like you or I who owned a house or bungalow rather than large tracts of land, and I'm pretty sure we do not have rights to minerals, or what they can do (such as tunneling for instance) below our little patch of land wherever we live in Great Britain... But I could be wrong!!