Photo: Cheryl Atkinson
In this update of protests about fracking and the onshore oil and gas industry:
- Reclaim the Power’s Break the Chain protest at fracking supply companies
- Tanker protest at Preston New Road and more arrests
This post will be updated with new activities and events.
7 April 2017
PR Marriott depot, Chesterfield
The anti-fracking group, Reclaim the Power, reported that 12 people had blockaded the entrance to PR Marriott, the drilling supply company.
Activists erected a scaffold tripod and locked themselves to the gate at 6.30am, preventing vehicles leaving or entering the site.
The group said it targeted PR Marriot because of its links with the fracking company, Cuadrilla.
PR Marriott, Chesterfield, 7 April 2017. Photo: Reclaim the Power
Derbyshire Police later said 11 people had been arrested.
5 April 2017
Preston New Road, Little Plumpton, Lancashire
Anti-fracking demonstrators report at 11.50am that Cuadrilla’s shale gas site has been closed by protesters. A spokeswoman for the North West Ambulance Service told the Blackpool Gazette paramedics were called to the site at 11.18am, after a man in his 20s suffered a suspected leg injury. Police said no arrests were made.
Preston New Road, Little Plumpton, Lancashire, 5 April 2017. Photo: Still from video by Eddie Thornton
Barclays Bank, Piccadilly Circus, London
Reclaim the Power said a group of activist clowns staged the “Fossil Fuel Smackdown”, a wrestling match outside the bank in protest at its 97% stake in Third Energy. The symbolic match saw clowns representing wind, tidal and solar ultimate triumph over coal, oil and fracked gas.
Reclaim the Power “Fossil Fuel Smackdown”, Barclays Bank, Piccadilly Circus, 5 April 2017. Photo: Marcin Nowak
One of the clowns, Michelle Tylicki, said:
“With today’s performance we hope to deliver a knockout blow to Barclays’ fracking company Third Energy.
Our performance today is comedic but the issue of fracking is serious. Fracking has no public backing, destroys the climate, and threatens to wreck the local community in Ryedale. The government has failed us so far, so it’s up to us clowns to take action.”
4 April 2017
St Brides PR company, London
Protest at St Bride’s PR company, London, 4 April 2017. Photo: Reclaim the Power
Three women from the anti-fracking group, Reclaim the Power, dressed as brides, locked themselves to the entrance of St Brides’s PR company to protest at its links with the fracking industry.
St Bride’s represents Europa Oil & Gas plc. The action is part of Reclaim the Power’s Break the Chain fortnight of action targeting companies in the shale gas supply chain.
One of the women, Hannah Dow, said:
“Financial PR firms that are wedded to the fracking industry are locking the UK into a toxic marriage that funds dangerous and unwanted unconventional oil and gas in the UK.
“This is not an industry that will support the health of our communities and that’s why local people have prevented fracking from taking off in the UK for the last six years.
“We’re gathered here today to witness a company representing projects for the richer not the poorer and we’re calling on St Brides to divorce companies intent on ignoring public concerns around unconventional oil and gas extraction.”
Photo: Jon O’Houston
Photo: Jon O’Houston
Photo: Jon O’Houston
Reclaim the power reported that one person had been arrested.
Preston New Road, Little Plumpton, Lancashire
Five people were arrested during protests outside Cuadrilla’s shale gas site. Anti-fracking campaigners alleged assaults by police and unlawful arrests. All photos by Ros Wills.
3 April 2017
Preston New Road, Little Plumpton, Lancashire
A man climbed on top of a tanker delivering to Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road site at Little Plumpton, near Blackpool. Police said later a man had been arrested.
Outside Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road site, Little Plumpton, Lancashire, 3 April 2017. Photo: Cheryl Atkinson
Outside Cuadrilla’s Preston new Road site, Little Plumpton, Lancashire 3 April 2017. Photo: Cheryl Atkinson
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Categories: Opposition
DRILL OR DROP? 
I may not agree with the strategy, but I have to admire the sense of humour, swings on overhead height barriers St Brides in white wedding dresses, and what is it? Five police vans and thirty policemen to hide the name of the truck, all at the tax payers expense? What operation is this called that the government will deny central records of?
Honestly, and I bet Cuadrilla didn’t even offer the police a warm drink.
Never mind, its all good fun?
You get the sense that the local police have been told to put the rabble back in line by higher powers. Happy days.
Not long till our JR decision!
No GottaF, you GottItAllWrong, the rabble are safe inside their razor wire confinement cages, just a few more, and when they are all safely behind cages, we will institute operation “Lock The Gates” and throw away the keys.
We can always round up the odd stray afterwards.
You got to be kidding!! That many policeman for just this. What a waste of public money to keep the nuisances and the mobs from harrassing people doing their normal businesses. Mobs rule.
Isn’t there a phrase “mob handed”?
30 against one, sounds like the prefered American police odds when dealing with a few unarmed native tribesmen and women?
Never mind, all is fair in death and taxes.
No GottaBKidding is someone else……isnt he?
To see so many police reminds me of the miners strike.
Women agains pit closures springs to mind and lots of people against nuclear power. I remember Doncaster declared itself a nuclear free zone. Preferred to burn coal, and favoured that fuel at schools, power stations and so on.
It all seems so long ago!
Who knows?? Maybe if we can secure an economic supply of energy to industry in this country, the police will be able to purchase some UK produced vans, made with UK steel? Crazy idea!
Indeed Martin – there are pipes full and boat loads of gas floating around looking for a buyer at less p per therm than these clowns will ever mange to extract it at – knock yourself out!
You mean the boats owned by Ineos shipping the gas from USA to Grangemouth? (Not the boats that have to find their way past Somalia and the Yemen?) Then, their grasp of economics is pretty dubious, we know, and you intend putting them right on that, so problem sorted.
It’s a shame to see PR Marriott being targeted for protest. Of all the companies operating in onshore oil and gas that I’ve encountered over the last 6 years, this is among those I admire the most and have the greatest respect for. It’s still a family owned business and treats it’s staff like family. They’re incredibly conscientious, take EHS obligations really seriously, and when working in Lancashire previously did everything they could to maximise their local spend and even took on two local people – Arthur and Neil – and trained them up to work as rig hands on the Cuadrilla projects. They really are a great firm and don’t deserve to be targeted for protest just because they drill wells for a living…