Reacting to the government’s decision to give the green light to Cuadrilla to explore shale gas in Lancashire, Charlotte Morton, ADBA chief executive, said:

"It is criminal that the debate about unconventional gas risks excludes the best source we have: biogas from anaerobic digestion.

"Upgraded to biomethane it is already replacing fossil gas in the grid, and has the potential to meet 10% of the UK’s domestic gas demand. It is ultra-low carbon and has a range of positive environmental impacts, in the process treating food waste and supporting farming.

"The government should be putting green gas first, by giving long term policy certainty to investors and developers, and ensuring that policies such as local authority waste collections make as much organic material available for digestion as possible.”

Speakers at the ADBA National Conference on Wednesday [12 December] voiced their concerns over the government’s policy on gas, with Steve Wallace, Aldersgate group calling for biogas to be a "revolution in gas supply" on the 200^th anniversary of town gas in the UK, and Jonathon Porritt, Forum for the Future stating that the government's failure to recognise green gas in the gas strategy is 'staggering', and inconsistent with our low carbon future, and that "AD needs the consistency across government that the Office for Unconventional Gas is giving for shale."