Cumbrian environmentalists are making their voices heard in the fight against fracking.

Fiona Prior, of Carlisle, joined Lancashire environmental activists this week at the controversial Preston New Road fracking site, where the protestors have been campaigning since 2017.

The 56-year-old said: “It was really good, good response from mostly everybody driving past.

“There was music, there was dancing, there was a bit of Samba drumming which I enjoyed.”

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn also joined the group of more than 100 protestors where he expressed his support for them and pledged that a Labour government would completely ban fracking.

“He was speaking in Blackpool and he came to have a chat with us,” added Fiona.

“He could hear that there was some upset because people couldn’t see him.

“So he stood up on a box of some sort and said ‘I can understand that you don’t really like the press being here but lets share the platform with them’ - which I thought was really good.”

This wasn’t the first time that Fiona had been to Preston New Road to offer her support to the protestors.

She has previously gone along to the site for talks and rallies as concerns about the work have grown.

Preston New Road Action Group is a group of residents campaigning against fracking surrounding their homes which would impact the local environment, community, and health.

Fiona said: “The fracking site on Preston New road is just one exploratory well, if it goes ahead it’ll mean hundreds of wells in that area.

“It’s a really really toxic way of getting some real dirty fuel out of the ground.

“We’re pretty desperate if we’re going for fracking.”

Extinction Rebellion has recently expressed support for the residents and Gail Bradbrook, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, will be giving a talk to them on August 8 before coming to Carlisle for another talk.

No sites for fracking have yet been earmarked for work in Cumbria.