Protest outside Marriott Drilling, 13 July 2017. Photo: Reclaim the Power
Campaigners against fracking who established a camp outside a drilling supply company in Derbyshire have relocated.
The camp, at Danesmoor near Clay Cross, was set up three months ago in protest at the activities of Marriotts Drilling Ltd. The company has been supplying Cuadrilla’s fracking site at Preston New Road in Lancashire and is part of the supply chain for the shale company, INEOS Upstream.
In a statement, the campaigners said the camp, on land owned by Worcester Bosch, was being relocated.
“Worcester Bosch have been tolerant and accommodating of the protectors, for which the frack free movement is very grateful.
“The company now wish to develop the area at the front of their premises in accordance with long established plans. Worcester Bosch are functional in the expanding domestic renewable energy sector, which will play a key role in reducing demand for fossil fuels and combating climate change.”
The statement said members of the camp, most of whom were local, had made the “strategic” decision in response to changes in the regional and national anti-fracking campaign.
“It does not indicate any retreat or backing down by the movement. Marriotts will still be regarded as legitimate target for protest action whilst they are active in or supporting the fracking industry.”
The camp in August 2017. Photo: Ben Marshall
The Marriotts depot was the scene of ongoing anti-fracking protests during the summer. They made national newspaper headlines in July when a police officer was filmed pushing a campaigner to the ground.
The statement from the protection camp said the decision to leave was also a response to what the anti-fracking movement regarded as an increasing threat from companies such as INEOS Upstream. INEOS has applied for planning permission for two shale gas sites in the East Midlands (Marsh Lane in Derbyshire and Harthill in Rotherham) and has identified a third (Woodsetts in Rotherham).
The statement continued:
“It has been decided that time and resources dedicated to the camp at Danesmoor can be better allocated to enhance the increasingly popular campaign against the fracking industry in the East Midlands and South Yorkshire.”
A spokesperson said the camp had raised public awareness about fracking in the region. A number of local anti-fracking groups had been established locally in the past few months, he said.
INEOS and opponents of shale gas exploration held rival exhibitions today in Woodsetts. In a recent survey in the village, over 90% of residents who responded said they were opposed to fracking locally, with just over 1% in favour. The response rate to the survey ws 90%.
The Marriott depot was covered in an interim injunction against anti-fracking protests, obtained by INEOS Upstream at the High Court in July. The order, extended earlier this month, will be contested at a three-day hearing in November.
Updated 26/9/2017 to make it clear that the camp has relocated
Categories: Opposition
DRILL OR DROP? 
Strange. This story seems to have missed out the attack on the site and the reported half million quids worth of damage done to the rig [edited by moderator – at present it is not clear who was responsible for damage to the rig]
The Failure Of The Equipment To Successfully Drill For Gas:: Means That So Far Cuadrilla Have Spent In Excess Of £28 Million Without One Single Penny In Gas Being Produced:: And By The Performance At PNR:: Looks Like Adding To Their Losses:: Marriott’s Looks More Like A Scrap Yard Than An High Tec Engineering Company:: Although One Of Marriott’s Directors Won The George Stephenson Award:: For His Study Of Disposing Of Nuclear Waste Down Boreholes::
Excellently put Adum, I have said before that there is more to this than mere oil and gas extraction, and the nuclear waste requirement is well documented and established. Your comment on the Marriott director award connection is interesting, do you have a name?
It would certainly explain the almost paranoid police activity and the equally paranoid operational and governmental need for secrecy?
I recall there was a report that a motorcyclist was stopped and detained by the police because he “looked like” a motor cyclist that had been thought to be tailing an operators truck? It makes you wonder what that truck was carrying?
Phil C
The paper is titled ‘Deep Borehole disposal of nuclear waste’. Engineering Challenges.
Authors Beswick, Gibb and Travis.
The idea being to drill deep boreholes into granite, 6 to 7km deep.
ideas that have been knocking around since the 1950s, but await drilling capability.
Oh dear! Show’s there is little UK support to stop fracking! [Edited by moderator]
I’d also like to know about whether the criminal damage has been prosecuted and that business may return to normal amongst the other businesses that have been afflicted [edited by moderator].
Injunctions seem to be the thing of the future! A good bit of actual experience of how they benefit the community before the hearing in November. Can they apply to bats?
Bye bye.
This article is incredibly misleading and doesn’t properly reflect the press release provided. The camp has not ‘quit’ but moved. The move had nothing to do with any injunction nor does it mean that the firm being targeted is not still a legitimate target. The alleged ‘attack’ on the rig was nothing to do with the camp – I believe it happened some months before the camp was even there. The camp was moved merely due to the fact that the land it was on was required by the owners and the camp felt that it was the honourable thing to do. The article also doesn’t show the clean and tidy site that was left by the campaigners.
AN EVEN GREATER threat to the world than Fracking (Which is (was) my #1 cause), are the Social Justice power hungry dictators. If I have to choose betweens supporting fracking vs advancing totalitarian divisional Frankfur School intersectional groups like “reclaim the power”, I’d choose the pro frackers… and THAT is really really sad people…
Read their agenda! This is the same BS that is dividing people in the USA. The reason why anyone disagreeing with the line of thinking is called a white supremecist. These people are anti-capitalist. Why cant there be a moderate pro-capitalist group that just doesnt want a horizontal well under the home. The key will be in this group’s funding and I’m sure George Soros will be involved somewhere… we need funding for moderates.
READ —–>>>
https://reclaimthepower.org.uk/who-we-are/
http://www.iep.utm.edu/frankfur/ Read this to learn how nations are brought down
Groups aligned with Reclaim the Power need to be asked:
List the nonexecutive and executive directors of your group.
Who funds your group?
Do you have members that agree with your FRACKING principals but disagree with others?
How does this work if your group operates by consensus?
What is your groups stance on: Open Borders, Brexit & Soverignty? Do you back a specific
political party in the UK?
The fact is, the TRUE GOAL OF THIS GROUP is to advance the ‘struggle’ of one group in order to PUSH THEIR OVERRIDING AGENDA on the groups that ‘buy in’ to at least one premise. Dissenters are usually kicked out or invalidated. Safe spaces are often space to let out rage & plan often illegal activities. Here is an example of a SAFE SPACE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-40198145 Fracking protestors are being used.
I hope that Drill or Drop looks further into the ‘intersectionality’ planned to onboard fracking protestors and compare this to the result of intersectionality in the USA. Also please notice that there are other inflammatory issues (religions, cultures, sexual & other norms) that get onboarded which help to divide people.
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Excellent reports Cindy, enlightening information, you have opened up an issue that I had mentioned before, that “reclaim the power” hands the protests issue over to the government on a pre prepared agenda platter and allows the government to prevent public protest for this and any other issue.
It has even been suggested that this organisation is an industry plant to exacerbate and escalate the protest situation to promulgate just such an attack on freedom of speech and prevention of legitimate protest that we are seeing now.
That is why i don’t support those activities and I have said so.
Perhaps there are more issues waiting in the wings and the anti fracking protest deliberate escalation and demonization by the government and the police is the first stage of turning this country into a fascist state.
Like Pastor Niemollers 1930’s poem, “first they came for the protesters?”