COUNCILS in Devon should respond with a firm ‘no’ to Prime Minister David Cameron’s announcement of huge payments to local authorities which approve fracking applications, says West-born Richard Cottrell, Independent Campaign West candidate in the local European elections in May.

He said: “Clearly the fracking resistance movement was building to such an extent it was time for something desperate, and the cue for bribes proposed by the Institute of Directors plopped from the sky like manna from heaven.”