It has been revealed that UK councils are investing more than £9bn of public money in fracking companies through their pension funds. Despite many councils voting against fracking developments in their own areas, they have failed to pull investment funds out of the industry.

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In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, fracking has been effectively halted, but councils there still oversee pension funds investing heavily in fracking companies.

In Lancashire our has county council had its own now infamous battle with then communities secretary Sajid Javid when he overturned the council’s rejection of Cuadrilla’s application to frack at Preston New Road. Two years on Cuadrilla are set to begin drilling – and the government is attempting to ensure that councils lose any oversight of where fracking developments are established.

The change in law suggested by the government would mean that fracking companies could, in effect, drill at will by removing the need for companies to apply for planning permission when building a fracking drill site. The proposals would bring drilling under “permitted development” – a category designed for minor home improvements like putting up a garden shed. If the proposals are implemented, the industrialisation of large swathes of our countryside seems inevitable.

Lancashire residents are rightly fighting the government’s proposition, arguing that decisions on shale gas applications should remain local. Yet despite Lancashire’s long and bitter battle with the fracking industry, our pension fund is propping up that same industry to the tune of almost £187m (almost 3% of our total fund).

This can’t be right. Why are we putting our valuable resources into the very industry we’re opposing? We could be investing instead in renewable energy, both here in Lancashire, and in other places around the UK, like windfarms in the North Sea. This would not only ensure a safe and viable future for our residents but also a good return for members.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘We could be investing in renewable energy, both here in Lancashire, and in other places around the UK – like wind farms in the North Sea.’ Photograph: John Lawson/FlickrVision

The companies our councils are investing in aren’t necessarily the same ones proposing to frack our countryside – Cuadrilla is nowhere on the list. Instead it is the likes of BP, Shell and ConocoPhillips who top the tables. These oil majors are savvy enough to avoid the PR disaster of fracking in the UK and instead concentrate their activities in the likes of Argentina, Canada and Australia. In 2014, BP CEO Bob Dudley said that the company doesn’t frack because “we think we would attract the wrong kind of attention”.

But this doesn’t stop BP boasting that it invented fracking and exploiting extensive fracking sites outside of the UK. One such site is the Vaca Muerta shale gas and oil mega-project in Patagonia, Argentina, where BP (through Pan American Energy), Shell and Exxon all have stakes and are actively drilling. The Vaca Muerta, home to 39 Mapuche indigenous communities, has been identified as the biggest shale formation outside North America.

Fifty local municipalities have passed regulation against fracking in Argentina; however, fracking continues. According to research by campaigner Anna Markova, pear farmers in the region have to abandon agricultural land, while working-class neighbourhoods are raising concerns that both fracking wells and polluting waste pits are being located in close proximity to their homes.

Here at Preston city council we’ve made the most of our financial resources by working across the local public sector to encourage the buying of goods and services locally – a move that has stopped 22% of our collective procurement budgets being spent outside of Lancashire.

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Through our pension funds, local councils can create a better future for their constituents. Ironically, this has begun with Lancashire’s pension fund earmarking £100m for local investment in the Preston, South Ribble and Lancashire City Deal, a huge regeneration project in the region, and in affordable housing schemes nationally which are also benefiting our local economy.

This shows a future is possible where the climate transition is being led locally and decent, sustainable jobs are being generated by the green economy. But to truly achieve this, our councils need to divert pension funds not only from the fracking industry, but from all fossil fuel companies.

• Matthew Brown is Preston city council leader and a member of Labour’s Community Wealth Building Unit