Update to Timeline – September 2013 30/9/13 Anti-fracking protestors begin to leave the camp outside Cuadrilla’s site at Balcombe. The Guardian reports that tents, banners and makeshift structures are being cleared from verges. Cuadrilla closed the exploratory well before its planning permission expired on Saturday September 28th. The […]
Update to Timeline – September 2013 26/9/13 Farewell to Cuadrilla Friends of the Earth Brighton announces a farewell gathering outside the Cuadrilla site at Balcombe at 11am on Saturday 28th September. The company has until Saturday, under the terms of its planning permission, to leave the site. 25/9/13 Rig […]
Update to Timeline – September 2013 25/9/2013 Green MP Caroline Lucas is charged following demonstrations against fracking at the Cuadrilla drilling site in Balcombe last month. A statement from the Crown Prosecution Service says Dr Lucas will face one charge under the Public Order Act 1986 and one charge of […]
Update to Timeline – September 2013 24/9/13 Police help Cuadrilla breach planning permission Sussex Police tells West Sussex County Council that lorries entering and leaving the Cuadrilla site at Balcombe this week will use different routes. This would be a breach of the company’s planning permission. In a […]
A month ago today, on Thursday July 25th, Cuadrilla began moving equipment onto its exploratory drilling site near Balcombe in West Sussex. Anti-fracking campaigners gathered outside the gates and successfully stopped lorries getting into the site. By 11am, campaigners had established a camp on the verge alongside and vowed […]
Updates to August timeline 23/8/13 Costs reach £2.3m Sussex Police says the cost of policing protests at Balcombe has risen to £2.3m and is likely to reach £3.7m. It says the cost of the six-day Reclaim the Power camp, which ended on Wednesday August 21st, were £1.5m, including help […]
Even before the arrest yesterday of the Green Party MP Caroline Lucas – for illegally blocking the entry to the drilling site, along with other protesters – it was clear that any rational debate [about shale gas exploration] had been drowned out by a shrieking chorus of environmental […]
Police lines contain protestors outside the site entrance More news from August 19th
8.20 Two policeman get off the train at the same time as me at Balcombe. 8.23 Lots of traffic on the road from the station, some of it very fast. I get onto the verge as a police car comes past. I get a wave and wave back. 8.30 At the […]
DRILL OR DROP? 