Fracking. A controversial method of extracting fossil fuel gas using a concoction of toxic chemicals that is widespread in the USA but banned in parts of Europe. The UK government are trying to push fracking on our country now, from Dorset to Surrey to the North. In 2011, fracking company Cuadrilla tried to frack in what a Tory minister called the ‘desolate north’, but the fracking near Blackpool caused two earthquakes and had to be abandoned. Cuadrilla then attempted to frack in Balcombe, Sussex in 2013 but were subject to a huge campaign against them, seeing thousands attempt to stop it going ahead, often by putting their bodies in the way of lorries.
Balcombe was always going to be a hard one for them‒ placed in a wealthy, Tory-voting area near London and Brighton. The resistance was stiff, and cost Cuadrilla dearly both financially and in terms of their reputation. Balcombe happily now has its own renewable energy co-op.
In 2015, Cuadrilla’s application to frack Preston New Road in Lancashire was rejected by the local county council, but in a blatant disregard for democracy the Communities Secretary overturned that decision and allowed fracking in October 2016.
Early this year, Cuadrilla started trying to prepare the site, with locals and activists taking action against them every step of the way. People have blockaded by lying in the road, invaded the site, locked themselves together in front of the entrance, climbed atop lorries and much more. Many of those resisting are locals, including a group of local grandmothers, but people have shown solidarity by coming from as far as Scotland and Somerset to help them. There is a lot of despair, anger, sadness that the democratic process failed and fracking was pushed on an unwilling community. This isn’t a group of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) types, these people don’t want this environmentally destructive, climate-change causing industry anywhere. There is also a lot of hope, strength, determination and resilience. These people will not give up, no matter what the company or its boot-boys in thepolice throw at them.
Cuadrilla, of course, pumps out a heap of spin (or to be less politically correct, stinking bull dung) about environmental responsibility and against those resisting them, but like most companies their aim is not to do the best thing for the future of our planet but to fill their own pockets. As ever, this is a case of the profit motive taking precedence over what is best for people and planet. If the only languages they speak are pounds and dollars, we ourselves have to be the cost. They simply cannot frack if they see this level of resistance nationwide‒it won’t be worth it.
Where do I come in? Well, apart from above – yep,that’s me, I’ve been fighting climate change for over a decade, and back in 2011 we realised fracking would be the next major battle against the fossil fuel industry. They want thousands of wells all across this country that I love so dearly, each one requiring stupendous amounts of water and truck movements, and producing large quantities of toxic waste, which in America has repeatedly leaked into aquifers and the water table from the frack sites. Some people have had their tap water turn flammable or their animals die. The UK is tiny compared to the USA‒fracking could do even greater damage here due to the closer proximity of everything. For these reasons and many others, we intend to stop it.
To this end, we fought them in Balcombe, we fought them at Barton Moss near Manchester, Upton in Cheshire and many more. Now we are fighting at Preston New Road. In 2013, I wrote a short spoken word piece about resisting to fracking, aiming to create a concise (less than one minute, nearly!) account of the issues and resistance. As ever, it is the rich pushing this, and as ever the poor who stand to suffer most. “Let them drink fracked water.” Not if we’ve got anything to do with it.
If you want more info on resistance to fracking, try searching for Frack Off, Reclaim the Power or any other groups opposed to it. A good informative video is Gasland, available free on YouTube. And if you don’t like what you see, I’d love to see you up north joining us, because it could be Dorset next…
Beau Nafyde
