Category: South East England

South East Eng­land

Balcombe frack-off latest

Day 48 (Tues 10th) Of Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe Sus­sex

Update (3:30pm): Pro­tec­tor cut off, arrest­ed and car­a­van moved. Come down and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty.

Day 48 (Tues 10th) Of Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe Sus­sex

Update (3:30pm): Pro­tec­tor cut off, arrest­ed and car­a­van moved. Come down and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty.

Update (2:00pm): Cuadrilla frack­ing truck blocked by Pro­tec­tor locked onto car­a­van in Bal­combe. Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Camp is still going strong despite increased police harass­ment.

Update (12:45pm): Ambu­lance takes one Pro­tec­tor to hos­pi­tal with leg injury caused by Police vio­lence

Update (12:15pm): First frack­ing truck of day arrives and is being blocked by Pro­tec­tors.

Update (12:00pm): Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Camp still hold­ing strong. Sit­u­a­tion pret­ty calm at moment. Lots of peo­ple here to sup­port Bal­combe but do come down to help if you can.

Update (11:00am): One of the three peo­ple arrest­ed for singing out­side Cuadrilla’s frack­ing site is a Bal­combe res­i­dent.

Update (10:30am): Police try­ing to intim­i­date camp but not here in large num­bers at present. Three arrests. More peo­ple would be good. Come down and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty if you can.

Update (10am): The day has start­ed qui­et­ly. Despite media report to the con­trary the Coun­cil has no pow­ers to evict the camp and would need to go through a court process to try. Threats by the police to use a Sec­tion 14 CJPOA to evict the camp are clear­ly ille­gal (though obvi­ous­ly that is no guar­an­tee they won’t try) but the camp is hold­ing firm. Come down and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty if you can.

28 Days Later / Balcombe anti-fracking protests update days 40–43

One Man Stop — 2nd September — Day 40

Update (14:45am): One pro­tec­tor locked on to frack­ing truck at the gate of Cuadrilla site in Bal­combe.

Update (11:45am): Two pro­tec­tors arrest­ed defend­ing Sus­sex from frack­ing.

One Man Stop — 2nd September — Day 40

Update (14:45am): One pro­tec­tor locked on to frack­ing truck at the gate of Cuadrilla site in Bal­combe.

Update (11:45am): Two pro­tec­tors arrest­ed defend­ing Sus­sex from frack­ing.

Update (9:30am): Police try­ing to force frack­ing truck through the com­mu­ni­ty pro­tec­tion block­ade. Come down and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty.

Pro­tec­tor Locked On To Frack­ing Tanker Block­ing The Gate Of Cuadrilla Site In Bal­combe — Video

More info and pho­tos here

Day 41 (Tues 3rd) Of Community Fracking Blockade In Balcombe Sussex

Pro­tec­tor Locked On To Gate Of Cuadrilla Frack­ing Site In Bal­combe — Video

“I study envi­ron­men­tal sci­ence, I know this is wrong, I know this is mad and it’s just about mon­ey. I’ve cho­sen this action because nobody is lis­ten­ing. I’ve signed peti­tions, I’ve writ­ten to the EA. I’ve been here peace­ful­ly protest­ing for the last 6 weeks or longer. The gov­ern­men­t’s just not lis­ten­ing to its peo­ple. Once they start putting those chem­i­cals down into the water table they can­not get them out. I don’t want to leave this mess for the next gen­er­a­tion and I cer­tain­ly don’t want to say I did­n’t do any­thing to stop it.”

Day 43 — 5th September Of Community Fracking Blockade In Balcombe Sussex

Break­ing: #Bal­combe Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Camp now has a tri­pod block­ing the road. Some cars can pass… looks like no trucks for a while… #Great­Gas­Gala #Frack_OFF #Cuadrilla

Day 43 of the Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade in Bal­combe. This morn­ing one Pro­tec­tor is block­ing frack­ing trucks from enter­ing the Cuadrilla’s site with a tri­pod. The camp in Bal­combe is fight the threat of thou­sands of frack­ing wells spread­ing across Sus­sex and the UK.

Videos

 

Help­ful Infor­ma­tion for groups con­sid­er­ing action

 

Action AWE Disarmament Camp & Blockade

25th August 2013

Direc­tions and details here.

Update — 2nd Sep­tem­ber — big block­ade

IMG_1294

25th August 2013

Direc­tions and details here.

Update — 2nd Sep­tem­ber — big block­ade

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More pho­tos and videos

Twen­ty-one pro­test­ers have been arrest­ed after blockad­ing a road lead­ing to a site which builds war­heads for nuclear sub­marines.

Anti-nuclear weapons pro­test­ers at Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­men­t’s (AWE) Burgh­field site oppose the renew­al or replace­ment of Tri­dent.

Burgh­field and AWE Alder­mas­ton pro­vide the war­heads for the sub­ma­rine-launched mis­sile sys­tem.

The activists were held on sus­pi­cion of obstruc­tion of a pub­lic high­way.

The UK’s exist­ing four bal­lis­tic mis­sile sub­marines are to be renewed from the late-2020s.

The gov­ern­men­t’s final deci­sion on whether to renew or replace the mis­sile sys­tem, the UK’s nuclear deter­rent, is due in 2016.

‘Pose a dan­ger’

Some of the pro­test­ers at AWE Burgh­field have come from Fin­land, Spain, Scot­land, Argenti­na and Japan to take part.

Police said there were about 20 tents as part of a camp near the West Berk­shire site.

Action AWE, which is co-ordi­nat­ing the protest with Tri­dent Ploughshares, said in a state­ment they were tak­ing part in “non-vio­lent direct action”.

They said nuclear weapons were “immoral, ille­gal under inter­na­tion­al law, dan­ger­ous to main­tain and pose a dan­ger to peace on Earth”.

Ch Insp Lind­sey Finch, deputy local polic­ing com­man­der for New­bury, said: “We will con­tin­ue to work with pro­test­ers to facil­i­tate peace­ful protest and ensure that any crim­i­nal activ­i­ty is dealt with pro­por­tion­ate­ly.”

A spokes­woman for the weapons site said: “AWE on-site secu­ri­ty, the Min­istry of Defence Police and Thames Val­ley Police are cur­rent­ly in atten­dance and will remain for the dura­tion of any protest action.”

Balcombe anti-fracking protests update days 25–39

Day 37 (Fri 30th) Of Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe Sus­sex

Update (10:30am): One pro­tec­tor arrest­ed defend­ing Sus­sex from frack­ing.

Update (9:30am): Police try­ing to force frack­ing truck through com­mu­ni­ty blokade.

 

Day 34 (Tues 26th) Of Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe Sus­sex

Day 37 (Fri 30th) Of Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe Sus­sex

Update (10:30am): One pro­tec­tor arrest­ed defend­ing Sus­sex from frack­ing.

Update (9:30am): Police try­ing to force frack­ing truck through com­mu­ni­ty blokade.

 

Day 34 (Tues 26th) Of Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe Sus­sex

Update (5:00pm): One pro­tec­tor arrest­ed today as police con­tin­ue to force frack­ing trucks through the block­ade for Cuadrilla.

Update (10:30am): First frack­ing truck of the day.

 

Day 28 (Wed 21st) Of Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe Sus­sex

Update (3pm): All Pro­tec­tors who were in Craw­ley Mag­is­trates Court today have been giv­en bail con­di­tions that allow them to return to the camp.

Update (1pm): For­est camp evict­ed by police.

Update (12pm): Police are try­ing to ille­gal­ly evict (with­out a court order) the for­est camp (small­er camp in wood­land next to the Cuadrilla rig site, not main camp on grass verge) at Bal­combe. Come sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty!

 

Day 27 (Tue 20th) Of Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe Sus­sex

Update (10:40am): Anoth­er frack­ing truck being blocked.

Update (9:30am): Frack­ing truck forced through com­mu­ni­ty block­ade by police. One Pro­tec­tor arrest­ed.

 

Days 25/26 — the Reclaim the Pow­er block­ade and more updates/photos here

 

28 Days Later: Please spread far and wide

Cuadzilla Balcome Rolling Blockade Red Version

Cuadzilla Balcome Rolling Blockade Red Version

A Rolling Block­ade of the Bal­combe frack­ing site, 1st Sep­tem­ber – 28th Sep­tem­ber

Frack­ing com­pa­ny Cuadrilla’s gov­ern­men­tal licence to drill in Bal­combe ends on Sep­tem­ber 28th. The gov­ern­ment may be allow­ing them to drill but they have no social licence from the peo­ple of Bal­combe to frack their land and threat­en their water sup­ply.  Nei­ther do they have any man­date to begin an entire wave of frack­ing across the coun­try. The vast major­i­ty of peo­ple in the UK want clean­er, green­er ener­gy.
After the upsurge of cli­mate activism at Reclaim the Pow­er in August, let’s make these last 28 days count. Let’s halt their work at Bal­combe, and also send a strong mes­sage to those want­i­ng to frack else­where.

A block­ade has been on-going at the drilling site, but trucks have still been get­ting through. Now it’s time to up the ante.

We invite groups from around the coun­try to come and play a part in a 28 day rolling block­ade.

Think cre­ative­ly and act respon­si­bly. Pick a week­day before Sep­tem­ber 28, gath­er friends and use­ful kit get your­selves to Bal­combe.

Frack­ing is stop­pable, anoth­er world is pos­si­ble.

* Peo­ple are remind­ed that this is a peace­ful block­ade and that the Bal­combe camp is alco­hol-free.

* For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please con­tact 28dayslater.balcombe@gmail.com

* Fol­low us on Twit­ter (@28_dayslater) and like us on Face­book (https://www.facebook.com/28dayslaterrollingblockade)

Memorial at Greenham Common bulldozed

27.8.13

I have just heard via a local woman that the memo­r­i­al to the sis­ters who protest­ed out­side the Green­ham Com­mon Nuclear site from 1982 until the gov­ern­ment was forced to remove the nuclear cruise mis­siles locat­ed there has today been removed by the own­ers of the Green­ham Com­mon Enter­prise Cen­tre that owns the site. 

 

27.8.13

I have just heard via a local woman that the memo­r­i­al to the sis­ters who protest­ed out­side the Green­ham Com­mon Nuclear site from 1982 until the gov­ern­ment was forced to remove the nuclear cruise mis­siles locat­ed there has today been removed by the own­ers of the Green­ham Com­mon Enter­prise Cen­tre that owns the site. 

 

Bull­doz­ers arrived at around 8am and began to rip up all the flow­ers and stones includ­ing even the memo­r­i­al to Helen Thomas who was killed while protest­ing there.   The memo­r­i­al was a gar­den of sev­en stand­ing stones encir­cling the ‘Flame’ sculp­ture which rep­re­sent­ed a camp fire.  I have called the Green­ham Com­mon Trust who run the site and they said the memo­r­i­al had “been there long enough” and was “a prob­lem for local traf­fic”.  I under­stand the entire gar­den is now gone and the land is sim­ply earth with all traces removed.

 

Peo­ple may wish to con­tact the Green­ham Com­mon trust and let them know what they think of this dis­gust­ing action

 

 

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…

  1. http://reclaimthepower.org.uk.gridhosted.co.uk” style=“max-width: 16px” />
    Grid­host­ed
    ·

    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…
    http://greatgasgala.org.uk” style=“max-width: 16px” />
    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…
    http://www.nodashforgas.org.uk” style=“max-width: 16px” />
    Nodash­for­gas
  2. reclaimthe­p­ow­er
     
    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!

  3.  
     
  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

March for a Frack-Free Future

18th August 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Balcombe anti-fracking protests update days 21–24

Peo­ple slow­ing trucks down, police forc­ing them through, some arrests and over­ly restric­tive bail con­di­tions on those already nicked lift­ed…

Peo­ple slow­ing trucks down, police forc­ing them through, some arrests and over­ly restric­tive bail con­di­tions on those already nicked lift­ed…

Details with pho­tos: Day 21 | Day 22 | Day 23 | Day 24

work stopped at Hastings-Bexhill Link Road

11th August 2013

11th August 2013

The Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing has just fin­ished.  This year in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Coombe Haven Defend­ers, it was in a beau­ti­ful spot close by to the Hast­ings-Bex­hill Link Road, the scene of big protests and camps to try to stop the road ear­li­er in the year. 

Each day there were Coombe Haven Defend­ers talks and walks, most­ly inspir­ing ‘acci­den­tal’ inva­sions of the road work site, engag­ing in a bit of dig­ger-div­ing or ‘foot­path enforce­ment’, in oth­er words stop­ping con­struc­tion vehi­cles. 

The road is of ‘low val­ue’ even by the gov­ern­men­t’s stan­dards, cam­paign­ers worked out a week ago.  There was a Cam­paign for Bet­ter Trans­port work­shop about the Roads to Nowhere nation­al road pro­pos­als (full map and more).