CAMPAIGNERS are preparing to take part in protests against unconventional forms of gas extraction.

Members of Clacks Against Unconventional Gas Extraction (CAUGE) will take part in a national protest to stop underground coal gasification (UCG) under the Firth of Forth.

The group will be taking part in the Hands Over Our Forth demonstration on Sunday at 2pm, where they will link hands across the Forth Road Bridge. Protesters will be calling on the Scottish Government to extend its moratorium on fracking to also cover offshore UCG.

As the Advertiser reported last week, there has been an ongoing battle between campaigners and companies who hope to unlock the UK’s energy reserves through new techniques. Cluff Natural Resources PLC (CNR) plans to extract “syngas” through UCG from around 1000 metres deep under the Firth of Forth near Kincardine and Grangemouth and company chief executive Algy Cluff had hit out at environmentalists saying their fears are “unfounded”.

A CAUGE spokesman said: “We know that Cluff has been lobbying the Scottish Government hard on this issue, but we still hope the Scottish Government will put environmental protection and the views of ordinary people over the private profits of oil and gas tycoons.

“Campaigners in Clacks worked hard to make sure that the Scottish Government did the right thing by putting in a place a freeze on fracking both here and across Scotland.

“But now is the time to make sure that risky undersea gas extraction is also put on hold. The consequences of a leak in the Forth are unthinkable – with risks to drinking water, marine life, and the tourism and fishing industries.

“UCG has a terrible track-record, with widespread examples of water and air pollution in Australia, which is the one place where it has been tried at any great scale.”

The group is also calling on SNP members to support a motion backing a freeze on UCG at the party’s conference on Friday October 16.

The spokesman added many residents are concerned Holyrood “is not fully committed to protecting our communities and environment from private profiteers”. Tomorrow, the group is protesting outside Tullibody Civic Centre at 3pm, when fracking firm INEOS Upstream will be meeting residents.

In April, INEOS embarked on a series of town hall meetings, including one in Alloa, to gain the “social license to operate”.