Category: North West England

North West Eng­land

Stop the Chop — Alexandra Park trees, Manchester

JOIN THE COMMUNITY PROTEST
SATURDAY 2nd FEB @ 1pm

JOIN THE COMMUNITY PROTEST
SATURDAY 2nd FEB @ 1pm
Protest Camp Open Now
We need YOU to help!

Peace­ful Protest @ Alexan­dra Park to stop the felling of 400 trees against strong pub­lic oppo­si­tion. As of Thurs 31st Jan, 2382 peo­ple have signed a peti­tion to oppose the scale of tree felling and wildlife habi­tat destruc­tion in the park, yet the coun­cil are ignor­ing pub­lic opin­ion. The meet­ing on 28/01 to dis­cuss these plans fur­ther was can­celled hours before tak­ing place & the works have steam­rolled ahead felling 53 trees so far. On 31/01, around 80 local peo­ple of all ages and back­grounds gath­ered in peace­ful protest, with BBC North­west cov­er­ing the sto­ry. For now, they have suc­ceed­ed in bring­ing tree felling works to a halt. But the destruc­tion starts again TODAY ! We need your help to save the remain­ing 347 trees & wildlife habi­tat areas!

Tell your fam­i­ly and friends, your neigh­bours and your com­mu­ni­ty. Bring ban­ners, bring good­will — togeth­er we can make our voic­es heard! PEOPLE OF MANCHESTER UNITE!

Meet near the park gates on Alexan­dra Rd South and Clare­mont Rd. 

PLEASE PROMOTE THIS PROTEST

www.savealexandraparkstrees.wordpress.com
Email: savealexandraparkstrees@hotmail.com
Twit­ter: @SaveAPTrees
Facebook.com/Save Alexan­dra Parks Trees
Action Group Tel: 07757 639 668

The Clause 21 Growth and Infrastructure Bill Threat: More Info

 

THE LOOSE ANTI OPENCAST NETWORK

IF THE GOVERNMENT GETS ITS WAY, ARE WE LIKELY TO SEE MORE ‘MOTHBALLED’ OPENCAST SITES POCK-MARKING OUR COUNTRYSIDE?

 

THE LOOSE ANTI OPENCAST NETWORK

IF THE GOVERNMENT GETS ITS WAY, ARE WE LIKELY TO SEE MORE ‘MOTHBALLED’ OPENCAST SITES POCK-MARKING OUR COUNTRYSIDE?

LAON PR 2012- 16                                                               1/12/12

The hid­den top­ic so far, in all the dis­cus­sion about the Ener­gy Bill is what will be its impact on the UK Coal Indus­try. This is a much shrunk­en indus­try, pro­duc­ing around 18m tonnes of coal a year. Last year 59% of that coal was pro­duced by open­cast meth­ods. This year, as the deep min­ing sec­tor con­tin­ues to suf­fer from prob­lems and cost pres­sures are clos­ing mines (on a tem­po­rary basis) at Malt­by and Aper­perg­wm and Daw Mill, our largest pit is almost cer­tain to close, domes­tic coal pro­duc­tion is becom­ing ever more reliant on sur­face min­ing – in the July to Sep­tem­ber quar­ter, of the 4m tonnes of coal the UK pro­duced, 65% now came from sur­face mines.

But even the sur­face mine sec­tor of the coal indus­try is not immune to the cold winds of eco­nom­ic real­ism com­ing from across the Atlantic, as US coal pro­duc­ers, des­per­ate to find a mar­ket for their coal now that it can no longer com­pete with gas in the US domes­tic mar­ket because of the ‘frack­ing rev­o­lu­tion’, send shiploads of coal to Europe at prices that make UK coal pro­duc­tion uncom­pet­i­tive. As a con­se­quence, ATH Resources, a major sur­face mine oper­a­tor has put itself up for sale and stopped devel­op­ment work on its new sites and Scot­tish Coal has asked its work­force to take a 10% pay cut and moth­balled its large Blair House open­cast site in Scot­land inde­fin­ably. It’s just left it as large hole.

Fur­ther­more, the Ener­gy Bill, intro­duced into Par­lia­ment this week is intend­ing to cre­ate a low car­bon gen­er­at­ing sys­tem which is design to squeeze out coal from being part of the fuel mix unless Car­bon Cap­ture and Stor­age (CCS) prove itself to be com­mer­cial­ly viable. The Bill will pro­vide for finan­cial dis­in­cen­tives to make it more cost­ly to burn coal in pow­er sta­tions with­out CCS, whilst, at the same time, pro­vide finan­cial incen­tives for exist­ing coal fired pow­er sta­tions to be ful­ly con­vert­ed to burn bio­mass. The result is that Coal Oper­a­tors in the UK are for the fore­see­able future like­ly to see their mar­ket for coal shrink­ing dra­mat­i­cal­ly.

All that may sound good to you, if you wor­ry about pro­tect­ing the coun­try­side from being treat­ed as one large coal bunker, or you are con­cerned about cli­mate change.

Except it is not all good news. The expect­ed decline in the use of coal for pow­er gen­er­a­tion pur­pos­es is going to take years to achieve. In the mean­time, we may be start­ing to wit­ness an increase in plan­ning appli­ca­tions for new open­cast mines across the UK, as Coal Oper­a­tors realise that they must try to cash in on the invest­ments they have already made before the coal mar­ket dries up.

This month LAON can report, in its 7th Review of Open­cast Sites avail­able here:

https://nottingham.indymedia.org/articles/3309

 that two new pro­pos­als have been made recent­ly, one for a new 10m tonne site called Cauld­hall, near Rosewell in Mid­loth­i­an (iron­i­cal­ly by Scot­tish Coal) and the oth­er at the Dean­field site for 1.18m tonnes at Sharleston near Wake­field, where UK Coal, anoth­er coal com­pa­ny which near­ly went into admin­is­tra­tion this year, intends to sur­face mine. As a con­se­quence, The Stop Open­cast in Sharl­ston (SOS) group has joined the Net­work

That is not the only bad news about the sur­face min­ing of coal in Eng­land. The Gov­ern­ment is propos­ing, through the Growth and Infra­struc­ture Bill (Clause 21), to make it eas­i­er to dig up coal in Eng­land, just when they are plan­ning to reduce the role coal plays in pro­duc­ing elec­tric­i­ty through the Ener­gy Bill. This clause of the Bill is like­ly to be debat­ed by the Growth and Infra­struc­ture Pub­lic Bill Com­mit­tee, along with our evi­dence, on Tues­day 4th Decem­ber.

LAON’s con­cern about these pol­i­cy changes is this. Giv­en the eco­nom­ic dif­fi­cul­ties that the UK Coal Indus­try finds itself in, is this the right time to be chang­ing the plan­ning sys­tem to make it eas­i­er for Coal Oper­a­tors to get per­mis­sion for new open­cast mines? This is increas­ing the risk that many more open­cast sites are left ‘moth­balled’ and pock-mark­ing our coun­try-side if UK Coal Pro­duc­ers find that they are increas­ing­ly priced out of their own declin­ing domes­tic mar­ket. In our view, this is not the time to relax plan­ning con­trols at all for new sur­face mines in Eng­land

We are hop­ing that the Gov­ern­ment realis­es the incon­sis­ten­cies in its cur­rent pol­i­cy pro­pos­als and whilst it con­tin­ues with its plans to decar­bonise the gen­er­at­ing sec­tor, it revis­es its plans and not allow any plans to sur­face mine coal in Eng­land to be treat­ed as a Major Infra­struc­ture Project.

A ref­er­enced ver­sion of this press release is avail­able by con­tact­ing LAON at the email address below.

About LAON

The Loose Anti-Open­cast Net­work (LAON) has been in exis­tence since 2009. It func­tions as a medi­um through which to oppose open cast mine appli­ca­tions. At present LAON links indi­vid­u­als and groups in N Ire­land (Just Say No to Lig­nite), Scot­land (Coal Action Scot­land), Wales (Green Val­leys Alliance, The Merthyr Tyd­fil Anti Open­cast Cam­paign), Eng­land, (Coal Action Net­work), Northum­ber­land, (Whit­ton­stall Action Group, Hal­ton Lea Gate Res­i­dents)) Co Durham (Pont Val­ley Net­work), Leeds, Sheffield (Cow­ley Res­i­dents Action Group), Kirklees, (Skel­mansthor­pe Action Group)  Not­ting­hamshire (Short­wood Farm Open­cast Oppo­si­tion), Der­byshire (West Hal­lum Envi­ron­ment Group, Smal­l­ey Action Group and Hill­top Action Group) , Leices­ter­shire (Minor­ca Open­cast Protest Group), Wake­field (Stop Open­cast in Sharl­ston) and Wal­sall (Alumwell Action Group).

Con­tact­ing LAON

Steve Leary LAON’Ss Co-ordi­na­tor, at infoatlaon@yahoo.com

You can now fol­low LAON on Twit­ter @ http://twitter.com/Seftonchase

WAKE UP CALL TO PROTECT THE COUNTRYSIDE FROM NEW PLANNING LEGISLATION

 

             THE  LOOSE ANTI OPEN-CAST NETWORK

 

WAKE-UP CALL TO PROTECT THE COUNRTYSIDE  FROM  LARGE SCALE MINERAL DEVELOPMENT ISSUED BY CAMPAIGN GROUP

 

             THE  LOOSE ANTI OPEN-CAST NETWORK

 

WAKE-UP CALL TO PROTECT THE COUNRTYSIDE  FROM  LARGE SCALE MINERAL DEVELOPMENT ISSUED BY CAMPAIGN GROUP

PR 2012 ‑15                                                                           28/1/12

Does a com­pa­ny want to dig a big hole near you? Is it inter­est­ed in try­ing to extract sand, clay. grav­el, stone or coal? If it is, and the site is going to be more than 100 hectares, then why not sug­gest to the own­er that they can side­step going to the Local Author­i­ty and have the plan­ning appli­ca­tion con­sid­ered by a new ‘fast- track’ method. Label it a ‘Nation­al­ly Sig­nif­i­cant Infra­struc­ture Project’ and it can then be decid­ed on, in a year, by a  Plan­ning Inspec­tor who, unlike local peo­ple and local­ly elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives, will not know the site, will not be affect­ed and will not know you.

Far- fetched ideas?  Unfor­tu­nate­ly not. These ideas are part of the pro­pos­als in the Government’s Growth and Infra­struc­ture Bill now before Par­lia­ment. It will enable sec­ondary leg­is­la­tion to be passed that, in its present form , will allow an appli­cant to by-pass the local demo­c­ra­t­ic deci­sion mak­ing process and have their appli­ca­tion treat­ed as a Major Infra­struc­ture Project. The Gov­ern­ment have ini­ti­at­ed a pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion process on the pro­pos­al enti­tled  ‘Nation­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant infra­struc­ture plan­ning: extend­ing the regime to busi­ness and com­mer­cial projects: con­sul­ta­tion’ which can be down­loaded from here.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/nationally-significant-infrastructure-planning-extending-the-regime-to-business-and-commercial-projects

The Loose Anti Open­cast Net­work (LAON) has analysed what the effect would be if the leg­is­la­tion was in place now on open­cast mine pro­pos­als. There are 11 pos­si­ble or actu­al pro­pos­als for open­cast mines in Eng­land cur­rent­ly. Under these pro­pos­als, deci­sions about the four largest could be tak­en out of the hands of the Local Author­i­ty and giv­en to a sin­gle unelect­ed per­son to decide. Our Brief­ing Note “ Growth and Infra­struc­ture Bill: Pro­posed 100 Hectare Thresh­old” pub­lished along with this Press Release @

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2012/11/503382.html

 out­lines fur­ther why The Loose Anti Open­cast Net­work argues against this pro­pos­al and urges oth­er com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­men­tal groups to urgent­ly study these pro­pos­als and voice their objec­tions.

All respons­es, on forms pro­vid­ed in the con­sul­ta­tion doc­u­ment, have to be in by 7/1/13.

About LAON

The Loose Anti-Open­cast Net­work (LAON) has been in exis­tence since 2009. It func­tions as a medi­um through which to oppose open cast mine appli­ca­tions. At present LAON links indi­vid­u­als and groups in N Ire­land (Just Say No to Lig­nite), Scot­land (Coal Action Scot­land), Wales (Green Val­leys Alliance, The Merthyr Tyd­fil Anti Open­cast Cam­paign), Eng­land, (Coal Action Net­work), Northum­ber­land, (Whit­ton­stall Action Group, Hal­ton Lea Gate Res­i­dents)) Co Durham (Pont Val­ley Net­work), Leeds, Sheffield (Cow­ley Res­i­dents Action Group), Kirklees, (Skel­mansthor­pe Action Group)  Not­ting­hamshire (Short­wood Farm Open­cast Oppo­si­tion), Der­byshire (West Hal­lum Envi­ron­ment Group, Smal­l­ey Action Group and Hill­top Action Group) , Leices­ter­shire (Minor­ca Open­cast Protest Group) and Wal­sall (Alumwell Action Group).

Con­tact­ing LAON

Steve Leary LAON’Ss Co-ordi­na­tor, at infoatlaon@yahoo.com

You can now fol­low LAON on Twit­ter @ http://twitter.com/Seftonchase

 

 

Residents protest at Manchester Airport

On Sat­ur­day 3rd Novem­ber around 100 local res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers took part in a protest walk against the pro­posed World Logis­tics Hub at Man­ches­ter Air­port. The pro­test­ers braved the cold to take a route around the 90 acre for­mer green­belt site, which is threat­ened by the plans to build 43 car­go sheds and almost 1,500 car park­ing space

Local res­i­dents, wildlife enthu­si­asts and envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­ers spoke at var­i­ous points along the walk, shar­ing their expe­ri­ences of fight­ing Man­ches­ter Air­port expan­sion and high­light­ing the numer­ous ways that the plans would affect local peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment.

 

The Wildlife Walk came the week after the Wythen­shawe Area Committee‘recommended for approval’ the World Logis­tics Hub plans, on the 25th Octo­ber.  The appli­ca­tion will now be sent to the Plan­ning and High­ways Com­mit­tee at Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil for a final deci­sion on 22nd Novem­ber 2012. A num­ber of atten­dees at the Wildlife Walk, keen for their con­cerns to be brought to this Com­mit­tee, pledged to attend this Novem­ber meet­ing at Man­ches­ter Town Hall.

Sev­er­al Coun­cil­lors of the Wythen­shawe Area Com­mit­tee backed the Logis­tics Hub plans based on the Air­port’s promis­es of local job oppor­tu­ni­ties. How­ev­er cam­paign­ers argue that

job cre­ation fig­ures pro­posed by the Air­port are inflat­ed.

Jane Beet­son from ‘Stop Expan­sion at Man­ches­ter Air­port’ cam­paign  said “When Man­ches­ter Air­port first announced plans for a sec­ond run­way, they claimed 50,000 jobs would be cre­at­ed.  No-where near that num­ber of jobs mate­ri­alised.  Just like then, they are mis­lead­ing the pub­lic now.”

She added, “Local Coun­cil­lors say they will force the Air­port to give jobs to local peo­ple but in prac­tice they will have no way of enforc­ing this on the firms that move into the new office and ware­house spaces.  We need to cre­ate green jobs in sus­tain­able indus­tries not dirty avi­a­tion.” 

The Wildlife Walk was also an oppor­tu­ni­ty for wildlife experts to explain that Air­port’s promis­es of pre­serv­ing wildlife are also unre­al­is­tic, and that cre­at­ing a ‘mit­i­ga­tion zone’ is no sub­sti­tu­tion for leav­ing habi­tats untouched.

Along the route, cam­paign­ers encoun­tered the threat­ened habi­tats of numer­ous plant and ani­mal species. Sev­er­al mature oak trees line Sun­bank Lane, pro­vid­ing nest­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for rare birds, and poten­tial roost­ing spots for endan­gered bat species. The site is also home to 12 ponds occu­pied by Great Crest­ed Newts, an endan­gered species found only in the North West of Eng­land. Walk­ers were also able to spot signs of pro­tect­ed ani­mals for exam­ple bad­ger snuf­fle holes and mole hills in the green space around Sun­bank.

EF! Winter Moot 2013: 22–24th February, near Preston

A week­end get-togeth­er for peo­ple involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action, from fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er to road build­ing. There’ll be dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning – with the empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies we use, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

A week­end get-togeth­er for peo­ple involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action, from fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er to road build­ing. There’ll be dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning – with the empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies we use, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism. This year we’ll be in Lan­cashire…

 

Update: full trans­port details and pro­gramme at link below.

Read more

Fracking on trial — again!

The safe­ty of frack­ing will be chal­lenged at Pre­ston Mag­is­trates Court today, as 3 peo­ple go on tri­al fol­low­ing a protest at Cuadrilla’s Hes­keth Bank site, Lan­cashire, in Decem­ber last year. (1) The tri­al is expect­ed to last until Thurs­day.

 

The safe­ty of frack­ing will be chal­lenged at Pre­ston Mag­is­trates Court today, as 3 peo­ple go on tri­al fol­low­ing a protest at Cuadrilla’s Hes­keth Bank site, Lan­cashire, in Decem­ber last year. (1) The tri­al is expect­ed to last until Thurs­day.

 

On 1 Decem­ber 2011, pro­tes­tors from Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide occu­pied the test drilling rig, shut­ting it down for 13 hours. (2) (3)

Hydraulic frac­tur­ing is a method of extract­ing gas in shale rock. Huge amounts of water mixed with tox­ic chem­i­cals are forced into the ground at high pres­sure, a large pro­por­tion of which are nev­er recov­ered. This flu­id also leach­es arsenic out of rocks, cre­at­ing a dan­ger­ous cock­tail that’s dif­fi­cult to dis­pose of. In the Unit­ed States numer­ous spills of these flu­ids have con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed irri­ga­tion water, affect­ing food sup­plies, and the health of sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties. (4) (5) (6)

Rachel Green­wood from Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide said: “Once frack­ing takes place con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of land and water, and the dev­as­ta­tion of local ecosys­tems, is inevitable. You can­not do it safe­ly, and reg­u­la­tion of frack­ing is total­ly inef­fec­tive. Cuadrilla were able to con­tin­ue drilling after their plan­ning per­mis­sion had expired. If frack­ing is allowed to go ahead in Lan­cashire it could hap­pen through­out the UK.”

There are twelve licens­es to frack for shale gas in the UK, five of which are held by Cuadrilla resources in Lan­cashire. (7)

Cuadrilla’s activ­i­ties are opposed both by local groups (8) (9) and cli­mate cam­paign­ers. On 10th July 2012, three peo­ple were found guilty of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass fol­low­ing an occu­pa­tion of the Cuadrilla Resources test drilling site at Banks. (10) On 18 June, 20 peo­ple block­ad­ed Cuadrilla Resource’s drilling rig at PR Marriot’s com­pound in Chester­field, lock­ing them­selves to the gates to pre­vent the rig from being moved to Cuadrilla’s site in Lan­cashire. (11)

UK Methane recent­ly announced their inten­tion to apply for plan­ning per­mis­sion to drill a Coal Bed Methane bore­hole in Keyn­sham, Bris­tol. (12)

Coal Bed Methane involves drilling into coal seams to extract gas in a sim­i­lar man­ner to frack­ing. A wide vari­ety of tech­niques are used depend­ing on the nature of the coal seam. If the seam is per­me­able enough, pump­ing water out of the seam will be enough to start gas flow­ing from the well, but if not, some sort of stim­u­la­tion will be need­ed. Often this is hydraulic frac­tur­ing.

Because the coal seams tend to be rel­a­tive­ly close to the sur­face, and because such large quan­ti­ties of water are pumped out of the coal seam (water that has been mari­nad­ing in coal for thou­sands of years), prob­lems with water con­t­a­m­i­na­tion and leak­ing methane tend to occur regard­less of whether frack­ing is per­formed. (13)

There is cur­rent­ly plan­ning per­mis­sion for around 60 Coal Bed Methane wells in Britain. (14)

Notes for edi­tors

1. Two of the defen­dants are charged with aggra­vat­ed tres­pass (sec­tion 68 Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Pub­lic Order Act 1994). The oth­er is charged with an offence under sec­tion 69 Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Pub­lic Order Act 1994, which is fail­ing to leave land as soon as prac­ti­ca­ble when direct­ed to do so by the senior offi­cer at the scene.

2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2011/dec/01/fracking-lancashire-hesketh-bank-cuadrilla

3. Pho­tos of the action are avail­able at: https://secure.flickr.com/photos/71113300@N08/

4. ‘Cracks in the Façade: EPA Traced Pol­lu­tion of Under­ground Water Sup­ply to Hydraulic Frac­tur­ing’ (Aug 2011 – EWG)
http://static.ewg.org/reports/2011/fracking/cracks_in_the_facade.pdf

5. ‘Methane con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of drink­ing water accom­pa­ny­ing gas-well drilling and hydraulic frac­tur­ing’ (May 2011 – Duke)
http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/cgc/pnas2011.pdf

6.‘Shale gas: a pro­vi­sion­al assess­ment of cli­mate change and envi­ron­men­tal impacts’ (Jan 2011 – Tyn­dall Cen­tre)
http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/sites/default/files/coop_shale_gas_report_final_200111.pdf

7. http://frack-off.org.uk/new-homepage/bad-guys/locations/

8. Res­i­dents Action on Fylde Frack­ing: http://stopfyldefracking.org.uk/

9. Rib­ble Estu­ary Against Frack­ing: http://reafg.blogspot.co.uk/

10. The defence was sup­port­ed by a num­ber of wit­ness­es, includ­ing aca­d­e­mics from the UK and US and mem­bers of the local com­mu­ni­ty, who tes­ti­fied regard­ing the con­se­quences of shale gas extrac­tion, in terms of cli­mate change, water con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, earth­quakes and severe health effects. For more infor­ma­tion see: http://frackingontrial.org/

11. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2012/jun/18/fracking-protest-chesterfield-cuadrilla-hesketh-bank

12. UK Methane have con­tact­ed Tran­si­tion Keyn­sham to announce that they will apply for plan­ning per­mis­sion to drill a Coal Bed Methane bore­hole in Keyn­sham: http://www.frackfreesomerset.org

13. http://frack-off.org.uk/coal-bed-methane-the-evil-twin-of-shale-gas/

14. http://frack-off.org.uk/bad-guys/locations/

For more infor­ma­tion see:
www.risingtide.org.uk
www.frackfreesomerset.org
www.frack-off.org.uk
www.frackingontrial.org

Twyford Down anti-road protests gathering, September

There is going to be a Twyford Down anti-roads protest reunion to mark that it is 20 years since the protests start­ed.  It’s on 29–30 Sept, when it’ll be the Har­vest Moon.  

There is going to be a Twyford Down anti-roads protest reunion to mark that it is 20 years since the protests start­ed.  It’s on 29–30 Sept, when it’ll be the Har­vest Moon.  

There will be a camp run along the same lines as 20 years ago (bring what you expect to find… water butts, tents, food, etc).  That said, there will be some domes and the @ teapot are going to be doing cater­ing (Sat din­ner and Sun break­fast) — hur­rah!  Camp loca­tion to be on top of St Cather­ine’s Hill, near Win­ches­ter.

There will also be a protest / pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ty about this cur­rent Gov­ern­men­t’s mania of road­build­ing. 

 Please spread this amongst your con­tacts who you think may be inter­estd.  There is a Face­book page if you do such things called Twen­ty Years Since Twyford: http://www.facebook.com/events/344190508996315/

More details and fly­er down­load­able at http://bettertransport.org.uk/blogs/roads/100912-twyford-20

Fracking On Trial: call out

THE TRIAL

The tri­al for the first frack­ing rig occu­pa­tion in Lan­cashire last Novem­ber kicks off next week. Start­ing Tues­day 10th July and sched­uled to last till Fri­day 13th July… so four full days at Pre­ston Mag­is­trates Court.

THE TRIAL

The tri­al for the first frack­ing rig occu­pa­tion in Lan­cashire last Novem­ber kicks off next week. Start­ing Tues­day 10th July and sched­uled to last till Fri­day 13th July… so four full days at Pre­ston Mag­is­trates Court.

If you’re against frack­ing and want to see it stopped, it’d be great to have your sup­port, both inside and out­side the court room! If you can’t make it down you can still help out by spread­ing the word (see below for social media details), and sol­i­dar­i­ty actions are always wel­come.

Three pro­test­ers have been charged with aggra­vat­ed tres­pass and are plead­ing not guilty based on ‘neces­si­ty’; assert­ing stop­ping frack­ing is nec­es­sary in the con­text of run-away cli­mate change and the dam­age it will cause the envi­ron­ment and local com­mu­ni­ties. Defen­dants will also be chal­leng­ing the ‘law­ful­ness’ of the extrac­tive process.

The defen­dants will be backed up by a num­ber of wit­ness­es, both ‘experts’ and from the local com­mu­ni­ty, who will tes­ti­fy about the con­se­quences of cli­mate change and hydraulic frac­tur­ing, the dam­age it caus­es to water con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, air pol­lu­tion, severe health risks, earth­quakes etc. The defence aim to total­ly rebuke indus­try claims that frack­ing is a harm­less ‘envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly’ way to extract fos­sil fuel… and instead put the indus­try on tri­al.

THE ACTION

Pro­test­ers stormed the gas rig in Banks, Lan­cashire on 2nd Nov 2011, with one team climb­ing the der­rick (drill) and a sec­ond team scal­ing the pipe han­dling sys­tem, occu­py­ing the rig and stop­ping work at the site for a day, dec­o­rat­ing the slimy machin­ery with anti-frack­ing ban­ners while they were at it.

The occu­pa­tion of the rig was timed to coin­cide with an indus­try spon­sored “Shale Gas Envi­ron­men­tal Sum­mit” in Lon­don, a far­ci­cal event where indus­try and gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tors meet to col­lab­o­rate on green­wash­ing PR to cov­er up the dam­age done by the fos­sil fuel indus­try.

The rig occu­pa­tion also coin­cid­ed with the release of a report by Cuadrilla admit­ting that the hydraulic frac­tur­ing of its first well had caused sev­er­al earth­quakes.

Since frack­ing came to the UK last year there have been mobil­i­sa­tions of local com­mu­ni­ty groups and envi­ron­men­tal activists across the coun­try ris­ing up against the indus­try. Includ­ing anoth­er occu­pa­tion of the site in Decem­ber 2011 [1] and a block­ade at PR Mar­riot Drilling in Chester­field, where the rig was being ser­viced, last month. [2]

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Halt­ing the extrac­tion of more fos­sil fuels is essen­tial at a time when the plan­et is warm­ing expo­nen­tial­ly. Com­pared to 100 years ago the cli­mate is 0.75 degrees warmer and now, in 2012, the Inter­na­tion­al Ener­gy Agency warn we are on a tra­jec­to­ry to warm by 6 degrees Cel­sius in the next 100 years. [3]

For the younger gen­er­a­tion this means the world will become large­ly unin­hab­it­able in their life­time, cer­tain­ly for their kids, if emis­sions are not cut. The imme­di­ate peri­od, now, is regard­ed as a tip­ping point and despite a lot of rhetoric about ‘tack­ling cli­mate change’ from gov­ern­ments, finan­cial insti­tu­tions and indus­tries alike, in recent years we have seen the high­est emis­sions ever. [4]

Extract­ing resources on this scale to feed the indus­tri­al sys­tem is destroy­ing the envi­ron­ment that our lives depend on.

As con­ven­tion­al oil and gas pro­duc­tion peaks, gov­ern­ment and indus­tries con­tin­ue to steam roll ahead devel­op­ing destruc­tive prac­tices that will pro­vide prof­itable new mar­kets to line their pock­ets.

Frack­ing is part of a recent boom in more extreme meth­ods of extrac­tion, described as ‘uncon­ven­tion­al ener­gy sources’; Tar Sands, Moun­tain Top Removal, Deep Water Drilling, Coal Bed Methane, Under­ground Coal Gasi­fi­ca­tion and Nuclear expan­sion.

Extrac­tive indus­tries noto­ri­ous­ly deny dam­ag­ing the envi­ron­ment and neg­a­tive­ly effect­ing humans, ani­mals or the envi­ron­ment. How­ev­er there is a long his­to­ry of these indus­tries caus­ing wide-scale destruc­tion, and also long his­to­ry of cov­er ups.

Its time to put frack­ing on tri­al!

You can keep up to date with pro­ceed­ings on Twit­ter @frack_off or
#frackingon­tri­al, on Face­book http://www.facebook.com/frackoffuk or at
http://frackingontrial.org (avail­able soon).

NOTES

[1] [http://risingtide.org.uk/node/428]

[2] [http://frack-off.org.uk/fracking-protesters-lay-siege-to-cuadrilla-drill-rig]

[3] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/world-on-track-for-nearly-11-degree-temperature-rise-energy-expert-says/2011/11/28/gIQAi0lM6N_story.html]

[4] [http://www.iea.org/index_info.asp?id=1959]

Earth First! Summer Gathering Update — programme, directions, website and more

It’s only weeks until the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing begins.
Five days of work­shops, info shar­ing and learn­ing new skills, 1–5 August.

It’s only weeks until the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing begins.
Five days of work­shops, info shar­ing and learn­ing new skills, 1–5 August.

The Earth First Sum­mer Gath­er­ing takes place each year to pro­vide a space in which the rad­i­cal ecol­o­gy move­ment can share skills and plan for future cam­paigns and actions.

Dis­cus­sions around the impor­tance of com­mu­ni­ty build­ing in inner cities, the state of the anar­chist move­ment and patri­archy in activism.

Skill shares includ­ing wom­en’s self-defence, research­ing cor­po­ra­tions and nav­i­ga­tion.

Cam­paign round ups from Frack Off! Smash Edo and Lud­dites 2000 amongst oth­ers.

If you have work­shops you like to run or dis­cus­sions you’d like to facil­i­tate then email us at earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net

Full pro­gramme.

Camp­ing is on a slid­ing scale of £30 to £15, pay what is gen­uine­ly appro­pri­ate.

Food will be from Anar­chist Teapot and meal tick­ets will be £5 a day.

Kids can have sep­a­rate meals if they want for £3 a day.

There will be a cou­ple of kids spaces, and spe­cial work­shops being ran for kids. If you’d like to run any kids work­shops get in touch at earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net.

If you want you dog to come along then you’re going to have to email us at earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net

And of course there will be enter­tain­ment and a bar open in the evenings.

The camp is ½ mile from the Berring­ton vil­lage, and 1 mile from the larg­er vil­lage of Cross Hous­es.

We encour­age non-cycling campers to use pub­lic trans­port if pos­si­ble as Cross Hous­es is on a bus route.

BY TRAIN
The near­est train sta­tion is Shrews­bury. You can then get the bus to Cross Hous­es (see below). If com­ing from a long dis­tance it can some­times be cheap­er to get a tick­et to a large sta­tion such as Birm­ing­ham, Wolver­hamp­ton, Man­ches­ter or Crewe and then a sep­a­rate tick­et on to Shrews­bury. Check nation­al rail for train times and prices. If com­ing from the Lon­don direc­tion, it’s gen­er­al­ly cheap­er to buy a Super Off­peak Return, spec­i­fy­ing “Lon­don Mid­land & Arri­va only”.

BY BIKE
See here for direc­tions and a map to the camp from Shrews­bury for cyclists and dri­vers.

BY BUS
When you arrive at Shrews­bury train sta­tion, ask some­one to point you to the bus sta­tion. It’s only a few min­utes walk from the train sta­tion. The bus ser­vice that runs from town to with­in a mile of Crabap­ple is the 436 towards Bridg­north. It runs every hour from 7.40am to 5.40pm with a “late” one at 7.40pm. The jour­ney to Cross Hous­es is approx 15 mins. You will need to press the stop but­ton when you see the sign for Cross Hous­es. Some of the ser­vices on this route are low-floor acces­si­ble bus­es. Please note that the last bus leaves Shrews­bury at 7.40pm, Mon­day to Sat­ur­day and there are no Sun­day bus ser­vices. For the bus timetable see here http://shropshire.gov.uk/bustimes/timetable.jsc?timetable=436mfi0412.
The camp itself is about 1 mile from the bus stop. From the bus stop at Cross Hous­es, walk back towards Shrews­bury past the petrol sta­tion (on your right) and take the first left turn signed “Berring­ton”. After about ½ mile, the road forks at the edge of the vil­lage. Take the right turn sign­post­ed “Bet­ton Abbots” and we’re about ¼ mile up the road on the right.
If you intend to come by bus but need help get­ting to and from the bus stop, you can arrange a pick up with us: details will be avail­able near­er the time.

BY TAXI
There is also a taxi rank just out­side Shrews­bury train sta­tion. Acces­si­ble taxis can be got from here.- but it is MUCH cheap­er to book a cab from a local com­pa­ny – Comet Cabs 01743 344444, or Vin­cent Cabs 01743 367777. Vin­cents also have a book­ing office just across the road from the sta­tion, which is handy if you don’t have a phone to book a cab in advance.

USEFUL LINKS
See here direc­tions and a map to the camp from Shrews­bury for cyclists and dri­vers.
See a map of where the site is here
See the bus timetable
Direc­tions from places oth­er than Shrews­bury

Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing Col­lec­tive
earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net

http://earthfirstgathering.weebly.com

Frack Off: Activists Blockade Fracking Drill

Update: it has now end­ed — a suc­cess­ful 7 hour occu­pa­tion on the gates and no arrests

18.6.2012

Update: it has now end­ed — a suc­cess­ful 7 hour occu­pa­tion on the gates and no arrests

18.6.2012

Anti-frack­ing group, Frack Off, is blockad­ing the site of Cuadrilla Resource’s drilling rig. Twen­ty peo­ple descend­ed on the site at 5am and are blockad­ing the entrance. The site is owned by PR Mar­riot who is Cuadrilla’s lead drilling con­trac­tors.

The action is stop­ping work on the drill which is being worked on in prepa­ra­tion for more frack­ing explo­ration in Lan­cashire. Frack Off is high­light­ing the threat posed by the tidal wave of extreme ener­gy extrac­tion meth­ods that are being pushed by the gov­ern­ment and a num­ber of most­ly US and Aus­tralian com­pa­nies. The action is the begin­ning of a con­cert­ed cam­paign by peo­ple across the coun­try to stop the intro­duc­tion of these dan­ger­ous prac­tices before it is too late.

Despite the mount­ing evi­dence from the Unit­ed States that the exploita­tion of uncon­ven­tion­al fos­sil fuels such as shale gas and coal bed methane (CBM) threat­ens to poi­son the envi­ron­ment, fur­ther desta­bilise the cli­mate and is impli­cat­ed in ris­ing toll on human health includ­ing increas­ing can­cer rates, cor­po­ra­tions and gov­ern­ments are doing all they can to push through the intro­duc­tion of these new ener­gy extrac­tion meth­ods in the face of grow­ing pub­lic oppo­si­tion.

Last month the Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Min­is­ter Gre­go­ry Bark­er announced in par­lia­ment that the “Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to seek full eco­nom­ic recov­ery of UK hydro­car­bon resources, both con­ven­tion­al and uncon­ven­tion­al”, a posi­tion which amounts to a dec­la­ra­tion of war on the peo­ple and envi­ron­ment of the British Isles. Full eco­nom­ic recov­ery will involve coat­ing the coun­try­side with drilling sites and pipelines while poi­son­ing the air and water and the emis­sion of vast quan­ti­ties or car­bon diox­ide into the atmos­phere.

The main jus­ti­fi­ca­tion used for the need for this destruc­tive course of action is that we face an ener­gy cri­sis and need this gas to “keep the lights on”. In real­i­ty uncon­ven­tion­al fos­sil fuels are very expen­sive to extract and the amount that could be extract­ed is a small frac­tion of the gas from the North Sea that we have squan­dered over the last 40 years. The choice we face is between con­tin­u­ing to feed our addic­tion to increas­ing expen­sive and dan­ger­ous fos­sil fuels or putting a stop to the vicious eco­nom­ic sys­tem that requires them.

There is a gap­ing dis­con­nect between the green rhetoric that is thrown around by gov­ern­ments and cor­po­ra­tions alike and the dirty, dan­ger­ous and impov­er­ished future that they are actu­al­ly advo­cat­ing in their quest for a quick buck. This pri­ori­tis­ing of cor­po­rate greed over the inter­ests of peo­ple and ecosys­tems while pre­tend­ing to care about them, has no bet­ter poster child than the Rio+20 Earth Sum­mit that starts on Wednes­day.

Twen­ty years after world lead­ers met in Rio de Janeiro and promised to address the envi­ron­men­tal and social prob­lems afflict­ing the plan­et they will meet again, to promise, again, to do some­thing about the now even worse prob­lems we face. As with twen­ty years ago they have no inten­tion of actu­al­ly doing any­thing that would put a check on the sys­tem of cor­po­rate exploita­tion that is destroy­ing the ecosys­tems we rely on. This is why ordi­nary peo­ple must take a stand to stop the destruc­tion if any­thing is every going to change.

For more info have a look at:

Twit­ter: www.twitter.com/frack_off
Face­book: www.facebook.com/frackoffuk
Web­site: www.frack-off.org
Pic­tures:  http://s.coop/pzid