A leading city councillor has said officials must take advantage of a new round of licensing and allow drilling for fracking under Birmingham.

Former Lord Mayor John Lines caused outrage from environmental campaigners after calling on the council to “drill down and start fracking in the very near future”.

The Conservative councillor compared the hunt for controversial shale gas as akin to the hunt for new energy sources during the late 19th century.

Coun Lines (Bartley Green) told the council chamber: “I do believe, controversial as it may be, that sometime in the very near future, we have got to consider whether we have got some gas underground.

“I haven’t got a problem with ensuring that the natural energy that we’ve got on this planet is actually used successfully.

“Not a little different from in Chamberlain’s day, as he looked at things for energy, ie, water, gas, and so on.

“I think we’ve got to take it seriously that we will still need, whatever we do, fossil fuels.

“So if they are down below us, let’s drill down and let’s use them for the benefit of our people in Birmingham.”

Alister Scott: Cracking the fracking debate

The councillor was addressing the chamber during a debate of a green deal motion put forward by Coun James McKay and Coun Claire Spencer, which proposed that European Union climate action targets were not green enough.

Although Coun Lines commended the environmental efforts made by the city in the past few years, he said we would always have to rely on fossil fuels.

But Coun Lisa Trickett, Cabinet Member for Green, Smart and Sustainable City, said that fossil fuels were an energy source of the past.

She said: “We need to do everything within our power to promote and develop sustainable and environmentally-friendly alternatives to fossil fuel – which is an energy source of the past, and not one that should be relied upon in Birmingham’s future.”

Currently the city has no licence for fracking applications.

However, under plans announced in January, councils will see economic incentives to allow fracking in their area.

Alister Scott: Help to frack fuels energy debate

Hannah Walters, from campaign group Frack Off explained that the region could soon be offered up to energy companies.

She said: “Fortunately for those that live in Birmingham, the city isn’t currently under licence.

“However, the region is being offered to fracking companies in the 14th licensing round – the results of which will be announced sometime before Spring 2015.

“In countries like the US and Australia where hundreds of thousands of fracking wells have been drilled, the results have been devastating.

“Beyond the obvious environmental issue of increased industrialisation, communities that live in or near these newly created gas-fields are suffering health impacts.

“The industry produces vast quantities of harmful toxic waste, causes severe localised air pollution and threatens to cause long-term groundwater contamination.”

United Kingdom Onshore Oil and Gas confirmed that it has several sites in the Midlands earmarked for fracking.

They include Gorse Lane in Fradley, Staffordshire and Brancote, Staffordshire licensed by energy giant iGas. UKOOG confirmed that Birmingham is included in the 14th shale gas licensing round which the government launched in the summer, but an announcement by the Department for Energy and Climate Change is not due until the summer.

But Chris Crean, West Midlands Campaign Coordinator for Friends of the Earth, said rather than ‘dirty, expensive and disruptive fracking’ he would like to see Birmingham lead the way with green initiatives.

He said: “I don’t think fracking would be beneficial for people in Birmingham.

“Given that it is heavily populated area, I think you would be hard pressed to find a local community that would back it in their area.

“In fact, perhaps Coun Lines should call on his own constituents to see if they would be happy with the industry in their patch. Instead we would like to see a massive drive towards renewable technology, especially solar technology. We would like to see panels on all school and public buildings.”

Campaigner Stephen Jackson added: “It is appalling what the local councillor has said.

“Fracking is dangerous and was never designed to be carried out near humans.”