COST… The cost of policing the test drill site at Belcoo has been revealed
THE TOTAL cost of policing the Belcoo site at which fracking company Tamboran proposed to test drill has been revealed.
The three-week policing operation had estimated costs of £451, 828 from Monday, July 21 until Monday August 11.
This has been broken down to £317,442 of overtime and £134,386 of duty time for PSNI officers.
The figures were obtained by Sinn Fein MLA Phil Flanagan yesterday (Tuesday), who said that Tamboran should be held liable for the costs.
Mr Flanagan said that the costs associated were ‘outrageous’.
“It is wholly unacceptable that these monies should come out of the public purse at a time of serious pressures to the policing budget locally. This will undoubtedly frustrate very many people as these much needed resources have been directed away from preventing and detecting crime in the local area.
“Tamboran, as the company responsible for this expenditure, should be held completely liable for paying these costs.”
He added: “If this expenditure had carried on in a similar vein for a year, it would have cost £7.8 million, which is a staggering amount of money.
“This certainly raises questions about what the policing bill would be if fracking were to go ahead and were to take place on multiple sites over a long period of time, given the cost of policing a single site for three weeks.”
The Fermanagh Herald attempted to contact Tamboran, however, were unable to obtain a response by time of going to press.
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