Shell Demo in solidarity with Rossport resistance

Thurs­day 18th August 2011

At 6pm on Thurs­day evening, peo­ple gath­ered out­side the Shell petrol sta­tion on the Carl­ton Road, Not­ting­ham.

Thurs­day 18th August 2011

At 6pm on Thurs­day evening, peo­ple gath­ered out­side the Shell petrol sta­tion on the Carl­ton Road, Not­ting­ham.

This protest was an act of sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who are fight­ing against the build­ing of Shel­l’s destruc­tive gas pipeline in Ross­port, Ire­land. Fol­low­ing over 10 years of bat­tling with the local com­mu­ni­ty, work began on lay­ing the pipeline a few weeks ago, and peo­ple are con­tin­u­al­ly blockad­ing to delay Shell

The police respond­ed with a cou­ple of offi­cers arriv­ing with 5 min­utes from the ban­ners being unfurled!

To the amaze­ment of those present, the fill­ing sta­tion staff then closed down and put bar­ri­ers across the entrances. They did this on direc­tion from man­age­ment, appar­ent­ly in the name of health & safe­ty.

In about equal mea­sure, dri­vers were upset at not being able to fill up .… and the num­ber of peo­ple hoot­ing sup­port and tak­ing leaflets.

Just up the road, the police had placed a sign say­ing that there was a police oper­a­tion in progress and to excuse any incon­ve­nience that might be caused. Gosh .…. all a bit OTT.

addi­tion­al­ly .…. there is now an oil-spill emer­gency in the North Sea.

The flow of oil from the worst spill in UK waters in the past decade, at one of Shel­l’s North Sea plat­forms, has been “great­ly reduced” but not yet stopped com­plete­ly, the gov­ern­ment said on Mon­day.

Con­ser­va­tion­ists warned that the leak could harm bird life in the area, at a del­i­cate time in their devel­op­ment, as the oil com­pa­ny worked to min­imise the dam­age.

Stu­art Hous­den, direc­tor of RSPB Scot­land, said: “We know oil of any amount, if in the wrong place, at the wrong time, can have a dev­as­tat­ing impact on marine life. Cur­rent­ly thou­sands of young auks – razor­bills, puffins and guille­mots – are flight­less and dis­pers­ing wide­ly in the North Sea dur­ing late sum­mer. So they could be at seri­ous risk if con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by this spill.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/aug/15/north-sea-oil-spill

I note about a week ago, the Shell PR dept were push­ing the line that the spill was not at all sig­nif­i­cant. No, not at all!! Then, more recent­ly, it has trans­mo­gri­fied into the most seri­ous spill in the North Sea in last 15 years.

Oh … then of course there are the many spills in the Niger Delta in Nige­ria. Plen­ty to com­plain about I think.

for more info … email NSN[at]riseup.net

Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp

More pho­tos, http://nottingham.indymedia.org.uk/articles/2005
http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org