Northern Frack
The anti-fracking frontline has arrived in Barton Moss. As SchNEWS reported back in September , this site near the M62 in Salford was next in line for the controversial gas extraction technique. This time it's IGas – a fuel exploration company partially owned by the Chinese government.
Yesterday (Weds 27th) saw the first four arrests as around fifty people answered the call-out for the Great Northern Gas Gala and formed human chains in front of iGas's trucks. The police, perhaps having learned from the Balcombe experience, were there in numbers from the start.
According to campaigning organisation Frack Off's newsfeed, a small drilling rig has already been established on site – possibly for prepatory work for the big rig, which is planned to drill down a staggering 10,000 feet in order to find exploitable reserves of either shale gas or coal bed methane.
A small camp has been set up on a private road very near the site and urgently needs your support. SchNEWS spoke to one of the hardy campers "Locals are really unhappy and feel completely disenfranchised. The government hasn't listened and the council haven't listened. Now we have to take matters into our own hands. Luckily peple from around the country have come to support us".
For directions and a rather optimistic* wish list - http://northerngasgala.org.uk/
For an overview of the situation at Barton Moss please see these articles:
* Fracking Manchester: IGas Threatens Barton Moss
(http://frack-off.org.uk/fracking-manchester-igas-threatens-barton-moss/)
* Fracking Threat In The North West
(http://frack-off.org.uk/fracking-threat-in-the-north-west/)
*They reckon you should bring 'sun protection',.
Update: So the landowner came, saw the numbers of protecters, the lock-ons, the bike-powered smoothie makers and the music, and returned home after refusing to talk to either the protesters or the press. But it isn't over – bailiffs could return at any time. Email GH your phone number if you want to be part of the phone tree or join the mailing list on the website: http://www.transitionheathrow.com… info@transitionheathrow.com
Convoys of trucks carrying equipment descended on West Newton yesterday, as Rathlin Energy commence their exploratory fracking drilling.
Anti fracking campaigners have got their hands on a Sussex Police report that details an 'emerging' nationwide strategy on protests against the controversial drilling technique. The report has been exposed in a report about the policing of the protests at Balcombe, West Sussex, last summer.
They've stolen our postal service, and are currently giving away the health service, education and prisons to their mates, what's next for this Government? Perhaps the most audacious theft yet - potentially all of our public land.
Artivists take on BPs sponsorship of the British Museum's Viking exhibition.
We started writing about three interesting but unrelated things happening in June. Here is an amalgamated version, which is worth a read.
As politicians get ready to debate the HS2 rail project for the second time, campaigners fight for secret documents to be released - and the environmentally devastating project to be shelved.
Re-occupation of the Hambach Forest, near Cologne in Germany, where activists occupy and fight the expansion of opencast mining.
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