How we Reclaimed the Power! — summary report of actions and before

A short sto­ry of No Dash for Gas, Reclaim the Pow­er and how peo­ple from across the coun­try stood in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Bal­combe to oppose Cuadrilla and the dash for gas…

A short sto­ry of No Dash for Gas, Reclaim the Pow­er and how peo­ple from across the coun­try stood in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Bal­combe to oppose Cuadrilla and the dash for gas…

It all began last year, when 21 activists occu­pied and shut down EDF’s gas fired pow­er sta­tion in West Bur­ton for over a week. It was time to stop the ‘Dash for Gas’ which would smash our cli­mate tar­gets and push up ener­gy prices…

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    The Great Gas Gala! | Com­muntiy Pro­tec­tion Col­lec­tive

    The Great Gas Gala! Since 7am on Thurs­day (25th July) the com­mu­ni­ty in Bal­combe, Sus­sex has been resist­ing attempts by frack­ing com­pa­ny…
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    Great­gas­gala
     

    And then, when we heard that Cuadrilla were explor­ing the poten­tial of frack­ing in Bal­combe and the local com­mu­ni­ty’s resis­tance, we changed the loca­tion of our ‘Reclaim the Pow­er’ action camp…

    action camp to switch loca­tion from West Bur­ton … — No Dash for Gas

    Aug 6, 2013 … The coali­tion of cli­mate, anti-aus­ter­i­ty and fuel pover­ty activists who were plan­ning on return­ing to West Bur­ton pow­er…
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    Nodash­for­gas
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    Huge num­bers of peo­ple signed up to our face­book event and told us they were com­ing. Even Rus­sell Brand was with us in spir­it!
     
    On Fri­day, we arrived in beau­ti­ful sun­ny Bal­combe, with mem­bers of a whole host of cam­paigns includ­ing UK Uncut, UK Tar Sands Net­work, Occu­py Lon­don, Dis­abled Peo­ple Against the Cuts and No Dash for Gas all join­ing the camp.
     
    Reclaim The Pow­er has arrived in Bal­combe | Come and join us!
     
    We joined the March for a Frack Free Future with two thou­sand pro­test­ers from across the coun­try…
     
  3. …and those from the local com­mu­ni­ty who’d been resist­ing Cuadrilla for weeks!
    August 19 2013: Bal­combe Sol­i­dar­i­ty Sun­day anti-frack­ing protest
     
    Local cam­paign­ers Vanes­sa Vine, Charles Met­calfe and Car­o­line Lucas MP were joined by speak­ers from No Dash For Gas and Occu­py Chevron in Poland to head­line a thun­der­ous ral­ly of oppo­si­tion.

 

The pro­test­ers then formed a human cir­cle around the site, join­ing hands, chant­i­ng and singing, while Cuadrilla’s work­ers looked on from inside their razor-wire fence.

  1. On Mon­day morn­ing, our Day of Action began!
     

  2. 6 activists block­ad­ed the entrance to Bell Pot­tinger’s offices in Lon­don, Cuadrilla’s “spin-doc­tors”. They are respon­si­ble for a whole host of pro-frack­ing lies and spin which we have thor­ough­ly debunked over the past 6 days.

    Cuadrilla’s PR com­pa­ny Bell Pot­tinger shut down by activists from Reclaim the Pow­er

    …then we heard from a group of 20 activists who occu­pied Cuadrilla’s HQ in Lich­field, just out­side Birm­ing­ham. They set up camp out­side the build­ing while three activists went inside, shut down 8 work sta­tions and took over a floor of the office!

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  4. Activists lock them­selves to fur­ni­ture inside Cuadrilla’s HQ
    …mean­while, a third action was tak­ing place at the con­stituen­cy office of pro-frack­ing min­is­ter, Fran­cis Maude MP. Tak­ing inspi­ra­tion from Lib­er­ate Tate, a wind tur­bine blade was deliv­ered to the roof of his office…
     
  5. Wind tur­bine out­side office of Fran­cis Maude MP
     
    …and with a rather love­ly mes­sage for Mr. Maude to read on his return!
     
  6. Note left out­side office of Fran­cis Maude MP
     
    Back at the drill site in Bal­combe, var­i­ous groups set up a range of orig­i­nal and cre­ative block­ades at the gate, involv­ing bikes, singers and dancers and lock­ing on to a wheel chair… 
     
  7. Block­ade out­side Cuadrilla frack­ing site in Bal­combe

    Sad­ly, the police decid­ed to be heavy-hand­ed in response to our peace­ful protest…

  8. Pro­test­ers block­ade Cuadrilla frack site in Bal­combe, West Sus­sex

     

    Else­where in Lon­don, 6 peo­ple had gone to Lord How­ell’s town house for our next action and set up a ‘For Shale’ sign there. George Osborne’s father-in-law is eager to spread frack­ing across the UK, par­tic­u­lar­ly to the ‘des­o­late north east’! Our activists from New­cas­tle might have oth­er ideas…

  9. Frack­ing lob­by­ist Lord How­ell’s house is for shale!
  10. Frack­ing lob­by­ist Lord How­ell’s house: for shale!

     

    Back in Bal­combe, the police decid­ed to start arrest­ing peace­ful pro­test­ers stag­ing a sit-in at the gate to the Cuadrillia site. Green MP, Car­o­line Lucas, was among those arrest­ed…

Back at the camp, the chil­dren at Reclaim the Pow­er (we were a gath­er­ing of all ages!) went on a bus ride to Bal­combe vil­lage to speak to local peo­ple about the dan­gers of frack­ing to every­one’s future. 
  1. Frack Free Future bus on tour!

     

    Word had spread to our friends and sup­port­ers world­wide about our day of action which had tak­en on Cuadrilla and the dash for gas from all sides!

    Then, only hours after being released, Car­o­line Lucas was field­ing inter­views, media work and back fight­ing frack­ing!

    And then, on Tuues­day, as we began mak­ing plans for the future…

    So as we pack down our camp today, it’s not the end! As Ewa from No Dash For Gas put it, ‘this is a marathon, not a sprint’ and we will win the fight against frack­ing…

Above from here

Good video