March by opponents of IGas application to test its well at Ellesmere Port march through Chester, 25 January 2018. Photo: Helen Rimmer, Friends of the Earth
In this update on protests about fracking and the onshore oil and gas industry:
- Demonstrations outside council meetings in Chester and Rotherham;
- First “lorry surfing” protest at Misson Springs;
- Lock-on trial verdict;
- Campaign steps up.
Please let us know (click here) if any of these details are incorrect or if other content should be included.
26 January 2018
Northern anti-fracking campaigns step-up
Opponents of fracking are intensifying their campaign against the shale gas industry across northern England.
In Lancashire, the United Resistance group, launched this week, is promising three months of non-violent direct actions starting in April against Cuadrilla’s fracking plans near Blackpool.
In Yorkshire, eight public meetings are planned for next month, described by the organisers as a “wake-up call” about INEOS plans for shale gas exploration in the area.
Bail conditions dropped
Two men arrested on 9 January 2018 over allegations that they poisoned a guard dog at Third Energy’s Kirby Misperton fracking site have had their bail conditions dropped. The investigation is continuing.
25 January 2018
Demonstrations outside council meetings
Campaigners against shale gas exploration demonstrate outside council offices before meetings in Chester and Rotherham.
Rally outside headquarters of Cheshire West and Chester, 25 January 2018. Photo: Helen Rimmer, Friends of the Earth
Councillors opposed plans by IGas for shale gas testing at Ellesmere Port. DrillOrDrop live updates and reaction.
Opponents of drilling at Harthill gather outside Rotherham Town Hall, 25 January 2018. Photo: DrillOrDrop
In Rotherham, the council’s planning committee opposed plans by INEOS for shale gas exploration at Harthill and will contest the application at a public inquiry. DrillOrDrop live updates and reaction
First “lorry-surfing” protest at Misson Spring
Lorry surfing outside Misson Springs, 25 January 2018. Photo: Ian R Crane
An opponent of IGas shale gas exploration at Springs Road, Misson, climbed onto a lorry delivering to the site. The campaigner was later arrested and taken to Mansfield Police Station.
No action over damage allegations
North Yorkshire Police confirms that no action will be taken against three men arrested on 26 November 2017 over allegations of damage to fencing at Third Energy’s fracking site at Kirby Misperton.
24 January 2018
Three generations of one family found guilty following fracking protest
The seven campaigners on trial outside Preston Magistrates Court, 24 January 2018. Photo: Reclaim the Power
Three generations of the same family are found guilty of obstructing the highway outside Cuadrilla’s fracking site in Lancashire in July.
73-year old Gillian Kelly, her son, Sebastian, and 20-year-old granddaughter, Megan, were among seven people who stood trial this week following a “lock-on” protest outside the Preston New Road fracking site near Blackpool.
Under the banner Families Against Fracking, six of the group locked their arms into reinforced tubes in three painted boxes. The seventh member of the group, drove a car which delivered the boxes. They said their action was to raise awareness of what they said were the dangers of fracking to water, land, health and the climate.
Police remove pallets from Misson Springs protection camp
Nottinghamshire Police allege that pallets being used to build a dining space at the Misson Springs Protection Camp were stolen. A group of officers dismantled the pallets and removed them from the site. Residents at the camp say the pallets were donated.
Frack Free Ryedale alleges safety flaws at Third Energy Site
Frack Free Ryedale publishes correspondence between Third Energy and the Health and Safety Executive over safety and monitoring breaches at the Pickering Well site following an inspection in March 2017. More details coming soon.
23 January 2018
Slow walk at Kirby Misperton
Slow walk of delivery vehicles on the way to Third Energy’s Kirby Misperton site, 23 January 2018. Photo: North Yorkshire Police
Campaigners carry out a slow walk, delaying a two-vehicle convoy delivering to Third Energy’s fracking site at Kirby Misperton for about 20 minutes.
Protest update archive
Categories: Opposition, Uncategorized
DRILL OR DROP? 
Can we start using the headline “Illegal activity for the week commencing…”. All this info helps us copy and paste into our paperwork for future injunctions.
Since when has protest been illegal GBH? Where would Hilary and Donald have campaigned without protest? and what about the anti war movement? The anti slavery movement? Womens votes and emancipation? Anti totalitarian regime protests? Party Political rallies?
Or are you perhaps you saying that protest should be “Not In My Back Yard?” In whose back yard then? Such protesters and protectors are welcome in my back yard any time they wish? Even anti anti protesters such as yourselves, albeit of the typed variety? Though i would ask of you not to fracture the rockery?
Such fun!
Isnt an absence of protest a indication of a number of things? Of being totally happy with everything? Does that even exist? Or perhaps of protest being outlawed on pain of arrest and confiscation of property? Sound familiar? Or perhaps of their being no one left alive to protest about anything, us having ransacked this planet to the point where it can no longer support life?
Complacency is an odd thing, it is often a result of being distracted or diverted from the truth, or being satiated with everything that only serves to debase us and corrupt us?
Which would you want?
Protest is often the only way a society has of achieving forward progress beyond the accepted established norms of living.
We cannot evolve if we stand still and accept enforced ways of life such as are provided by hanging on to ancient falsities such as slavery and tyranny over women and tyranny from self serving energy empires.
The fossil fuels debate is, oddly enough a social catalyst, an indication of forces we have taken for granted but no longer serve our purpose other than to enslave us. it is a timely reminder that we cannot, must not, stand still and let corporate and government greed and avarice hold sway and hold us back from true future progress. Or we will simply decay and deteriorate to the point where we cannot evolve beyond our present state even if we wanted to.
As a species we are so close to that need for change, many of us can taste it, and hanging on to the old failed and poisonous oil and gas uncertainties will simply not provide that vitally needed forward movement any more. they have become too assured of their own importance that they have the one and only answer, to the point where they are willing to crush any move to change to a better way that frees us from their stranglehold.
Renewables and their innovations will lead beyond to new understanding of our true place in the true energy cycle, to live within the planets natural energy systems, not forcibly yank and wrest them away leaving ecological devastation and destruction in our wake. All these planetary deep scars are joining together, soon there will be no clean space, no unpolluted environment if we go on the way we are going.
Renewable sources of energy are not an end in themselves, but a means to an end, and we desperately need that to move forward out of our present self imposed and imposed upon us poisonous traps.
And we are in desperate need of evolution beyond the present insane inertia to hold desperately on the fossil fuels and ignore all the technological advances of the past hundred years and beyond to more ways of understanding how nature works for the benefit of all, not just a jealously self serving avaricious few.
We do that now or we decay and descend into obscurity and some other species will eventually take our poisoned place and wonder at the vast areas of poisoned decaying bones we will leave as our legacy to the world.
Evolve or die, that is natures way, i dont know about you, but i think evolution has the edge!
[Typos corrected by moderator]