Arrest of Kirkham town councillor, Miranda Cox, 3 July 2017. Photo: Kristian Buus for Reclaim the Power
The shale gas company, Cuadrilla, said today many of the protests at its site near Blackpool were by a “small hard-core” of national activists and were neither peaceful nor lawful.
The company was responding to concerns raised yesterday by the Green Party that the right to protest was under threat at the Preston New Road exploration site. (DrillOrDrop report)
In a reply to a letter from the party’s co-leader, Jonathan Bartley, Cuadrilla accused the Greens of a “lack of awareness about the reality of much of the protest” at the site.
But Frack Free Lancashire, one of the groups opposing Cuadrilla’s shale gas operations, in turn accused the company of “outright desperation” and said its chief executive, Francis Egan, himself seemed “far-removed from the realities of Preston New Road”. The group vowed to continue peaceful non-violent direct action at the site.
Yesterday, Mr Bartley urged Cuadrilla to answer allegations of violence against protesters by security guards and staff at its site near Blackpool. In a hand-delivered letter, he expressed “grave concern” about reports that one protester had been hit by a truck leaving the site and another had been punched and held by the throat by security staff. Link to Green Party letter)
Mr Bartley said:
“Protest is a pillar of our free society and democracy. Cuadrilla must make clear what it is doing to investigate and ensure violence is never used against anyone at its site.”
In a reply made public by the company today, Mr Egan said police officers and Cuadrilla employees and contractors had been “subject to daily abuse and intimidation”. Cuadrilla’s reply to Green Party letter
Mr Egan said:
“Much of the protest activity, carried out by a small hard-core of national activists, is very far from peaceful or in many cases lawful.”
The letter added:
“Protestors’ democratic right to lawfully protest should not and does not over-ride workers and companies’ right to lawfully go about their daily work free from abuse, intimidation and road blockages.”
Mr Egan invited the Green Party co-leader to join him in “unreservedly condemning all unlawful and aggressive protest activity of the type we have sadly seen all to frequently outside the Preston New Road site”.
He said the alleged assault on a protester was the subject of a police investigation, as were allegations of subsequent harassment and intimidation of the security officer.
In response to the incident involving a van leaving the Preston New Road site, Mr Egan said:
“No member of Cuadrilla staff was involved, the driver in question did not drive away from the scene and you, or anyone else, can read the Police account of the alleged incident on the Fylde Police Facebook page.
The letter continued:
“The police statement makes clear that the protestor concerned declined to speak to the Police and that the driver had taken evasive action to try and avoid the person who came into contact with the van.”
“Blaming protesters for violence is desperate spin”
Frack Free Lancashire said:
“Mr Egan seems once again, far-removed from the realities at Preston New Road. Perhaps it’s because he himself is not actually local.”
Spokesperson, Claire Stephenson, said:
“The ‘hardcore national activists’ Mr Egan refers to is incorrect.
“If he’d bothered to engage with the local community over the years, he’d see the same local mothers, grandmothers, fathers, grandfathers and so on, standing up against his misguided notion that he could walk into Preston New Road, without a challenge.”
Ms Stephenson said the man hit by a flatbed truck leaving the site had lodged a complaint with the police.
“The continued violence and aggression witnessed on camera and video feed is undeniable and to try and spin that in the direction of campaigners, smacks of outright desperation.
“Our peaceful protests, non-violent direct action challenging this company will continue until the day they leave Lancashire. They should expect continued resistance. We said no, and we meant no.”
- See DrillOrDrop’s Protest Update 10-16 July 2017 and Protest Update 3-9 July 2017 for more details and links about these incidents and comments from the police and people involved.
Categories: Industry
DRILL OR DROP? 
Of course some of the protests(ers) are neither peaceful, local, or lawful. There is no arguing this, it is a simple and demonstrable fact. [Edited by moderator]
At the end of the day this “he said she said” stuff hashed out on the biased pages of DrillorDrop is of zero consequence. Shale gas exploratory drilling is moving forward in many prospective areas within the UK. The country has demanded it through a democratic process. The protesters will always be there, maybe not in large numbers, but they’ll always be present, just as there are those who will always protest the sun, the convention of daylight savings time, the practice of vaccinations, and so many other things.
Any large sample is going to have its fringe elements, or outliers. [edited by moderator] They will fight society with their dying breath, wondering why society could not conform to their moral perspectives and norms. But for the rest of us, life will go on and it can be quite a good life with a good balance of natural gas and renewables, that hopefully grows to favor renewables over the next several decades.
The scuffles and whining are to be expected, but the war has been won. It’s time to move on.
“It’s time to move on.” – indeed – close the door on your way out Peeny
Absolute rubbish, not through democratic process!! But you would know that if you lived here!
there is no good balance between gas and renewables; we are continuing to get adverse effects from gas drilling in US ; and here in US , the industry and their supporters like to paint all of us as fringe and not-peaceful and even dangerous…it’s a ploy of the Industry…
here is the latest University study showing problems with our water from gas drilling: https://www.rt.com/usa/396281-fracking-waste-contaminates-pa-watershed/
and the latest posting on Facebook of a family I know in my county and their horror at their water going bad and they’re surrounded with gas wells and compressor stations and pipelines : Janis Hough Winschuh
17 hrs ·
Some gas wells in our area are being re-drilled. This week we had a bad spell of water turning black, then gray and black specs floating in our water. The black specs are pieces of manganese which come from bedrock when there is a nearby disturbance such a gas drilling. A neighbor is also experiencing the same problems. Not all will have this problem but if you do, please notify DEP. They will test your water and inform the gas company that is doing the nearby drilling and that company will probably also test the water. It is better to be safe than sorry.
Have you ever actually been there, fibonacci009? You talk of “a simple and demonstrable fact” – have you video footage then, that identifies people who are not peaceful, local, or lawful? There is plenty of video footage identifying the core group locals who are there most of the time, protesting peacefully and lawfully.
You have to come to our Shalefields in US and where I live in Pennsylvania and see the continuing damage to our air, water and lives…here is the latest incident of water turning black with people I know listed on Facebook earlier today: Janis Hough Winschuh
17 hrs ·
Some gas wells in our area are being re-drilled. This week we had a bad spell of water turning black, then gray and black specs floating in our water. The black specs are pieces of manganese which come from bedrock when there is a nearby disturbance such a gas drilling. A neighbor is also experiencing the same problems. Not all will have this problem but if you do, please notify DEP. They will test your water and inform the gas company that is doing the nearby drilling and that company will probably also test the water. It is better to be safe than sorry.
All these and they didn’t bring in the EPA to investigate and lawyers to sue the company?? I thought if you have any evidence in the causative effects of fracking you bring it to attention if the public.
Run to the EPA, don’t make us laugh.
They are like lions without teeth .
Here’s an extract from the link below, referring to the United States EPA…….
” In private conversations, however, high-ranking agency officials acknowledge that fierce pressure from the drilling industry and its powerful allies on Capitol Hill – as well as financial constraints and a delicate policy balance sought by the White House — is squelching their ability to scrutinize not only the effects of oil and gas drilling, ”
https://www.propublica.org/article/epas-abandoned-wyoming-fracking-study-one-retreat-of-many
here is latest University Study of adverse water impacts in my State from gas drilling waste: loads of waste with each drilled well…and what to do with it…https://www.rt.com/usa/396281-fracking-waste-contaminates-pa-watershed/
those who haven’t been harmed yet, can be smug about “moving on” and don’t have to deal with this Industry as we have since 2008 in my area…
Looks like the waste water treatment facility didn’t do their job. The good news is that if they did do their jobs, the water would be fine, so this can be fixed. https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2016/04/18/report-drilling-didnt-strain-water-supply-in-susquehanna-river-basin/
It can be a year or more before there’s any admission of liability, by which time serious (sometimes irreversible) damage has been done. It could be more years before fines or orders with any teeth are arranged to make the industry clean up the mess. These companies do not regulate themselves properly and it concerns me that everyone is being told to assume it’s all going to be handled perfectly here and/or that the EA has the necessary enforcement teeth. Lots of reports (found in the US) of wastewater truckers (usually buried reports) dumping their loads on fields, wasteland or even on roads and in ditches rather than wait in line to get the stuff disposed of properly. Time is money you know.
The country has demanded it through a democratic process.” fibonacci009 Democracy? Where? How? in Lancashire and in Surrey the planning applications were turned down several times by the local and county councils, those decisions, based on the opinions of local residents were overturned by faceless bureaucrats within central government, and no doubt those faceless people have their sticky financial fingers in the oil and gas pie! THAT is NOT democracy which ever way you look at it.
Cuadrilla’s past planning breaches and failures as a licensee fuelled a national campaign against shale gas. Today, Cuadrilla pay PR companies to smear all campaigners in national, local and across social media.
Don’t think we need to Vera. UK is now shipping US fracked gas to help us cook our weekend meals. Pretty ironic really when you consider the carbon footprint of the shipment-you should be encouraging UK to frack and then they will shut down the industry in USA. LOL Pretty ironic when the antis in the UK have been arguing long and hard that fracking is uneconomic, both in USA and UK. Fake news eventually gets examined and found out.
So, the Green person, whoever he is, has gained his bit of publicity and Cuadrilla and the police have explained what is going on, from their viewpoint, and the antis have said they are wrong and they are right. An awful lot of hot air-capture it all and there would be no need for fracking!
No Martin – we’ve mostly been arguing that it’s uneconomic in the UK. In the US it’s cyclical. You know this. Don’t try to tell us what we’ve been arguing.
A note on the article in the Telegraph (thanks to Fibs) here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/07/05/national-grid-import-lng-us-shale-first-time/
states:
‘Ed Cox, an LNG expert at market data company ICIS, said the UK would receive more shipments in the coming years – but only as a last resort.’
The UK has better access to pipeline gas from Norway etc for guaranteed supply; all this will of course will depend on trade to and from the participating countries and the upscale of renewables including hydrogen fuel cell. It will be interesting to see how this develops….
https://www.centrica.com/news/centrica-signs-long-term-us-lng-export-deal-cheniere
Last resort? Starts next year unless they cancelled the contract?
And in 2019:
https://www.centrica.com/news/centrica-signs-new-lng-deal-qatargas
Interesting.
https://www.centrica.com/news/centrica-signs-long-term-us-lng-export-deal-cheniere
This article was written in 25 March 2013…I think Ed Cox’s statement is more relevant Paul in the light of changes due to the many factors affecting the energy markets of today.
The second article is about LNG from Qatar, not US shale.
Yes, the article was about LNG, not shale. Yes 2013, that is when the contracts were signed.Perhaps Centrica can cancel their contracts? But I expect they are committed to the imports they signed up for, albeit there will be a range and if Ed Cox is right it may be the lower end of the range. Despite what John Powney is saying, industry indications are that Norwegian gas production is on the way down fairly rapidly in the near term.
No need to cancel…
‘Under the terms of the agreement, Centrica will purchase LNG on a ‘Free on Board’ (FOB) basis, giving it destination rights for the cargoes’
so not necessarily for the UK.?
If not shale not sure why you put it on in the first place as we were discussing shale imports to the UK….
Ed Cox was discussing LNG. Ex US LNG is predominantly shale gas if not all shale gas; certainly Cheniere. If Centrica get a good price it will come here – who knows what will happen in Qatar in the near term?
But you said ‘Yes, the article was about LNG, not shale.’ – you are not making any sense. It is either LNG from shale or not.
Presuming your statement: Ex US LNG is predominantly shale gas if not all shale gas; certainly Cheniere. then IS shale…..
so just to clarify :
‘‘Ed Cox, an LNG expert at market data company ICIS, said the UK would receive more (LNG from Cherniere o.e. from shale) shipments in the coming years – but only as a last resort.’
What is the latest count for arrests at PNR? When protestors say that their protests are not unlawful I presume this is defined by their law and not UK law?
Why bother putting out a statement which is demonstrable false? Oh, silly me, we have been over this one before.
cuadrilla’s sub-contractors should note how quickly francis egan distances cuadrilla from them
[Edited by moderator]
arrest under english law (there is no such thing as uk law) does not mean you are guilty of anything
nobody has been arrested for any violent act
[Comment removed by moderator]