Wrexham Borras drill site occupied — Please support the camp

Camp banner19.10.2014

Camp banner19.10.2014

GP Ener­gy (who were bought out by Dart who in turn have been bought out by IGas) applied for plan­ning per­mis­sion to do an explorato­ry drill for coal bed methane (CBM) at Bor­ras, Wrex­ham. Frack-off describes coal bed methane as the evil twin of shale gas. Wrex­ham coun­cil refused the appli­ca­tion back in March after at lot of work by local peo­ple to edu­cate the plan­ning com­mit­tee on the dan­gers of uncon­ven­tion­al gas extrac­tion. The suc­cess of this was at least in part due to increased aware­ness of the issues as a result of a test drill hap­pen­ing at the same time in near­by Farn­don. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the Wales Plan­ning Inspec­tor over­turned the coun­cil’s deci­sion ear­li­er this month — on some dis­tinct­ly dodgy grounds — and the site is now under immi­nent threat of test drilling, even though it is in an area where the gov­ern­men­t’s own report has indi­cat­ed CBM extrac­tion isn’t fea­si­ble due to the geol­o­gy.

A pub­lic meet­ing has been called for 23 Octo­ber in Bor­ras but, in advance of that, the site has been occu­pied this week­end and a com­mu­ni­ty pro­tec­tion camp set up. Sup­port (includ­ing more campers) and sup­plies need­ed. Please get there if you can. Post­code LL13 9TG. There’s a camp Face­book group or you can con­tact Frack-Free Wrex­ham for more infor­ma­tion.

an idyllic spot - let's keep it that way

Camp flier
Camp fli­er

Flier for meeting and camp info
Fli­er for meet­ing and camp info

Around 25 peo­ple were on site this after­noon. Those who had been camp­ing since Fri­day said they were over­whelmed with the num­ber of peo­ple who’d called round to the camp to wish them well and drop off sup­plies, water, build­ing mate­ri­als, camp­ing gear and all sorts of oth­er use­ful stuff. As well as a group of tents in the mid­dle, a com­post toi­let had already been built, as well as a shel­ter by the fire and a kitchen under con­struc­tion.

Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Camps can only suc­ceed with the sup­port of the local com­mu­ni­ty, so if you live local­ly, or fur­ther afield, and care about pro­tect­ing the coun­try­side, air, water, food… (prop­er­ty own­ers might also care about their prop­er­ty val­ues which are liable to plum­met in areas where drilling goes ahead), please call in to the camp and see what’s need­ed. There’s a warm wel­come for all friend­ly vis­i­tors — just turn up. Police pres­ence so far has been low key.

The site is quite mud­dy, par­tic­u­lar­ly around the gate, so bear that in mind if you’re plan­ning to go into the field. If you’re dri­ving, park­ing is pos­si­ble on the verge along­side the gate and if you’re trav­el­ling by bus, the site is about 1 mile from the Holt Lodge Inn. Take the turn­ing near­ly oppo­site the Holt Lodge into Shep­herds Rd. Fol­low this road right to the end, turn left at the T‑junction and the site is on the left just after the Bor­ras vil­lage sign. The C56 bus from Wrex­ham or Chester, both of which have rail­way sta­tions, stops at the Holt Lodge Inn. A camp phone num­ber will be avail­able soon.

Frack Free Wrex­ham
- e‑mail: frack­freewrex­ham [AT] riseup.net