March for a Frack-Free Future

18th August 2013

Peo­ple came from all over the UK to protest against frack­ing, and in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the vil­lagers of Bal­combe and the road-side protest camp who’ve been ‘Lock­ing the Gate’ for three weeks now.  Police have been increas­ing­ly harass­ing camp res­i­dents, arrest­ing seem­ing­ly at ran­dom times pick­ing peo­ple off as they come out of the toi­let or are eat­ing lunch, and putting severe pres­sure on the rig-side for­est camp.  Mean­while the Reclaim the Pow­er camp had land­ed in a field about a 30 minute walk away, and has been build­ing up to the action days this com­ing week. 

Well over a thou­sand peo­ple marched — the first wave left Reclaim the Pow­er, passed through the orig­i­nal protest camp and made it’s way up to the sta­tion.  No soon­er than a line of yel­low came into view ahead through the trees lin­ing the road, a cheer rose and peo­ple at the sta­tion came stream­ing down.  The police with­drew from between the crowds — fear­ing a Blake­lock Sand­wich — and took up posi­tion at what had been our rear, and now was the front.  We slow­ly marched down, to the beat of a band of drum­mers, a sam­ba band, and sound sys­tems, down to the gate, where along with the lines of police from var­i­ous forces, peo­ple lis­tened to speech­es by com­mu­ni­ties fight­ing the frack­ing threat and pub­lic fig­ures there in sol­i­dar­i­ty. 

Pic­tures

Local ‘democ­ra­cy’ (AKA cor­rup­tion) of Bal­combe parish coun­cil — Pri­vate Eye