Brian Morrison speaking at a rally at Preston New Road, 29 September 2017. Photo: DrillOrDrop
A Lancashire businessman who had been threatened with arrest for sounding his car horn in support of anti-fracking protesters led a convoy of hooting motorists past Cuadrilla’s shale gas site this morning.
Twenty-eight other cars followed Brian Morrison, honking their horns continuously as they drove past the site at Little Plumpton near Blackpool.
None of the drivers were arrested, although but Mr Morrison said police followed him home and warned him not to organise another convoy.
But he vowed to make the protest a regular event and said he expected more drivers would take part next time.
Mr Morrison made front page news in Blackpool last week when he was told he would be arrested unless he promised to stop sounding his horn on his daily journeys past the fracking protests. He refused and made a formal complaint. Blackpool Gazette
This morning he told a rally outside the Preston New Road site:
“If you are driving towards a group of people you can beep your horn as a message of warning.”
Mr Morrison said he made his complaint against the police officer who threatened to arrest him because she gave colleagues outside the shale gas site a thumbs up and received a round of applause from them.
He urged opponents of fracking:
“Keep beeping your horn. Contact me. Let’s get this convoy regular and stop everything. I am not stopping.
“I am waiting to be arrested. Arrested for what? I am letting you officers know I am coming.”
Link to video by Maple Indie Media: https://www.facebook.com/SmartCard007/videos/1998992980333175/
Local survey: two-thirds opposed to fracking
Today’s rally included people from Northern Ireland, Manchester and Lancaster, along with members of Quakers, Friends of the Earth and local Labour groups.
Gail Hodson, a member of West Lancashire Borough Council, said fracking opponents were conducting an ongoing door-to-door survey of local people as part of a community campaign. In the first three weeks, the results were: 64% opposed to fracking, 24% unsure and 12% in support, she said.
Cllr Gail Hodson, Preston New Road, 29 September 2017. Photo: DrillOrDrop
Miranda Cox, a member of Kirkham Town Council and the community liaison group for Preston New Road, said the world was at a tipping point:
“The fact that we’re having to stand here and put our lives on hold to fight and to resist this industry tells me that there is still some hope, that people are waking up and people will resist and will do what they can for our planet.
“We need to act and we need to take people with us on that journey and wake them up. We need to consider where we’re going in our lifestyles, what life choices we are making and how we are going to encourage this government … and put pressure on any future government to look at policies regarding the use of fossil fuels. There really are sustainable alternatives out there.”
Nick Danby, Preston New Road, 29 September 2017. Photo: DrillOrDrop
Nick Danby, of Roseacre Awareness Group (RAG), said:
“I am absolutely convinced that we are going to win this battle. We have just got to be patient.”
He said opponents of fracking were awaiting the outcome of a legal challenge in the Court of Appeal to ministerial approval of planning permission for Preston New Road. They were also opposing the Ineos injunction against disruption caused by protests at sites across the country.
“We have to fight on all these fronts. But ultimately we will win.”
Barbara Richardson, of Frack Free Lancashire, said opponents of Cuadrilla’s operations had to maintain their presence outside the Preston New Road site:
“We have to be here and get out numbers up. Let’s show [Francis] Egan [Cuadrilla’s chief executive] we will be here as long as he is.”
This report was made possible by individual donations from DrillOrDrop readers
[Correction to show that the injunction to prevent disruption was sought by Ineos]
Categories: protest
DRILL OR DROP? 
Honestly! Not allowed to walk, not allowed to film, not allowed to sound horns! What next? By the look of it not allowed to comment on truck surfing, presumably to protect us from suffering injunction prosecution and censorship?
Incidentally Paul, isn’t the injunction by Ineos?
The text says it is a Cuadrilla injunction?
“They were also opposing Cuadrilla’s injunction against disruption caused by protests at sites across the country.”
Thanks for spotting that Phil C. Post corrected.
No problem Paul, just as an aside by the way, why is the truck surfing protest item not allowing comments? Is it because of the injunction on such things?
We clearly need you on the team, Phil C. Wrong setting applied. You can now add comments to that page.
Happy to help……on a totally non biased basis of course!
Have a good relaxing Sunday.
Well, its Sunday again!
A bit of a damp one too,
so wherever you are, under canvas
or behind a razor wire fence,
relax and share a slightly altered Lewis Carroll poem.
Enjoy!
Frackerwrocky
From the original: “Jabberwocky” By Lewis Carroll
With greatest apologies and gratitude to
the Estate of Lewis Carroll and Charles Dodgson
for some slight changes of words.
’Twas Drillrig, and the spoily droves
Did gore and grumble in the Weald:
All flimsy were the burrowed groves,
And the mole rats outrage.
“Beware the Frackerwrock, my friend!
The bores that blight, the clause’ that catch!
Beware the Job Bad blurred, and contend
The furious Coppersnatch!”
She took her Corporate Sword in hand;
Long time the sack-zone foe she sought—
So rested she by the Council Tree
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought she stood,
The Frackerwrock, with eyes of shame,
Came whaffling through the sullied wood,
And bungled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The Corporate Blade went fricker-frack!
She cleft its wellhead, and sent it fled
And went galumphing back.
“And hast thou shamed the Frackerwrock?
Come to my farms, my greenish one!
O Frackless Day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his fun.
’Twas Drillrig, and the spoily droves
Did gore and grumble in the Weald:
All flimsy were the burrowed groves,
And the mole rats outraged….
Have a great Sunday
[Typo corrected at poster’s request]
Police Officers need to start questioning those who give them their orders. It’s all very well for those higher up in their ivory towers to pass down orders which have no legal standings but it is the officers who are the ones in the firing line if complaints are made and upheld.
If I was an officer I would ask my superiors to prove to me that what I was being ordered to do was legally correct.
If daytime honking was unlawful the industry and it’s friends in high places would have tried to have this stopped a long time ago.
Another desperate failed attempt to try and quieten the huge majority who oppose this industry.
There are hundreds of anti fracking groups across the country with skills and resources which will overpower this industry which is neither needed nor wanted.
We have forever to stop this. They have till the invested money runs out.
Looks as if Nick’s Awareness is somewhat lacking. Perhaps a change of group name might help?
I think you should wait and see the outcome of the reopened inquiry before you get too cocky Martin. We’re just as likely to see colliers as frackers in Roseacre I imagine, so I wouldn’t be changing your own name too fast. 😂
Let’s get this straight. First I tell you that fracking will poison your water and your air, that it will cause you to give birth prematurely, that it will decimate agriculture, and cause your house price to plummet. Then I ask you if you support fracking. Should we expect a different answer from these people following all of the hype and fearmongering from the anti-frackers? If so, why? What utter BS.
Peeny – (or do you prefer Bohara these days? It’s so hard to keep up with all the IDs you use on the various different sites 😏) I think we can agree that fracking is unlikely to cause me to give birth prematurely.
It’s funny though how all of the polling seems to tell a similar story isn’t it? There’s the plummeting support shown by the government’s wave polling and the latest Yorkshire Post one is showing 90% against isn’t it?
Lots and lots of Industry led meetings to attend. Lots of glossy brochures on how good the industry is. Lots on the internet pointing out the benefits of shale, the jobs and big community handouts. The facts that the UK will be plunged into darkness and that pensioners will freeze to death if we don’t have shale.
Backing fracking will tell you how good it is.
All that information is readily available.
So let’s get this straight.
The vast majority of the people in the Fylde have made informed decisions.
They say they don’t want fracking.
Common sense really
Following the events in the last few days Catalonia with the violent police crack down on a referendum for independence from Spain is revealing the depths to which established authority is prepared to go to preserve its power at all costs.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2017/oct/01/catalan-independence-referendum-spain-catalonia-vote-live
One can only wonder whether an independent referendum on fracking in UK would receive similar attention?
I hate Ineos with a passion! They do not care about the disruption they will cause to our village and villages across the north. Parasites is a word I use for them.
Another PR attention seeker???
Isn’t that what PR is for TW?
So you agree that this person is an attention seeker…
No I was just commenting on your tautology TW 🙂
I think you may have the wrong perception between the two term. PR is to create and nurture one’s image while attention seeking is just stunt.
“Public relations, byname PR, aspect of communications involving the relations between an entity subject to or seeking public attention and the various publics that are or may be interested in it” – that’s from the Encyclopedia Britannica TW- I hope that’s good enough for you 😏
A brazen toot from Bristol in support of your efforts. I have spent time on the roadside at PNR and there is plenty of support from people sounding their horns. Even the local Mr Whippy ice cream van plays his tune when he passes. It’s a tonic for those who spend their time on the front line protesting against this abhorrent industry. So stupid to single out drivers who ‘toot and hoot’ as traffic offenders.
Insomnia is alive and well, it seems. Probably a lack of sleep caused by horn honkers, or perhaps the three line whip to say nothing when there is nothing to be said, because saying nothing covers up that there is nothing to be said, anymore?
Check today’s Times-“Is a lack of sleep shortening your life?”
Today? Blimey – The Times editor must be so engrossed in pumping fracking for Rupert that he missed this story that the rest of the press covered a week ago. 😂
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/24/why-lack-of-sleep-health-worst-enemy-matthew-walker-why-we-sleep
Ah, but then I don’t have a problem with my current name, refracktion.
Who does Martin? (Except maybe Peeny who probably finds it difficult to remember which one he is supposed to be using where)
honk honk
Reblogged this on MAL's MURMURINGS.
We have some of these “honkers” in our village, but we suspect the spelling has become corrupted.
All great ammunition for injunctions, so that locals are protected from antisocial behaviour. Getting close to the courts deciding the antis are a bigger threat to locals rights to a peaceful life than the frackers!
All this horn honking must be a real problem for local wildlife as well-especially bats!
Better to be ‘honkers’ and oppose fracking than be ‘bonkers’ and support it 🙂
👏👏👏 Chapeau!