Time is running out. But we can stop Osborne’s fracking free-for-all | John Ashton

This is not just about climate change: the processes of our democracy are being twisted to impose an outcome

Cuadrilla, the shale gas company, will learn this week if it's been given the go-ahead to conduct the most ambitious fracking operations in Britain yet. The two sites it wishes to drill are both in the Fylde, a gently creased handkerchief of trees, hedgerow and rich farmland that connects the resorts of Blackpool and Lytham St Annes to the Lancashire hinterland. Not far from either location is the village of Wrea Green, regularly judged Lancashire's best kept village, its giant duck pond fringed this midsummer with tall stands of flag iris the colour of sunshine.

Lancashire county council's development committee is considering both applications. Approval for either would be the biggest step so far towards the prospect, enthusiastically backed by David Cameron and George Osborne, of a fracking free-for-all across Britain.