Anti-fracking activists have attempted to disrupt activities at the Preston New Road site near Blackpool after Cuadrilla operations were given the go-ahead to resume by UK courts.
Fracking at Preston New Road has been suspended for the past seven years after initial work caused a serious of seismic tremors. Last Friday saw an environmental campaigner lose his high court battle to prevent Cuadrilla from resuming operations, with work due to begin again on Monday 15 October. The company had planned to restart its fracking activity as early as Saturday, but was prevented from doing so by the disruption caused by Storm Callum.
It’s been reported that two protesters from the group Reclaim the Power chained themselves in the road adjacent to the site at around 7 am on Monday morning. Police closed the road while it was decided how to remove the protesters, but Cuadrilla claimed that fracking at the site would continue regardless, as all equipment required was already on site.
In 2015, Lancashire county council rejected two applications from Cuadrilla to resume fracking on Lancashire’s Fylde Coast, pointing to both the noise and visual impact of the operations. However, these decisions were overturned by home secretary Sajid Javid, then acting as communities secretary, who claimed that shale gas would make up an important part of the UK’s future energy mix.
Energy minister Claire Perry – who has previously referred to fracking protesters as a ‘travelling circus’ – recently said that laws regulating acceptable levels of seismic activity associated with fracking could be relaxed in order to boost the shale gas industry. In response to the IPCC’s latest report on climate change and the action required, Perry said there was ‘no excuse’ for failing to act, a statement that has prompted claims of hypocrisy from those opposed to fracking.
“After granting permission to frack earlier in the summer, last week the energy minister had the hypocrisy to say there was ‘no excuse’ for inaction on climate change,” said Charlie Edwards from Reclaim the Power.
“So we’re here today to stop the start of fracking, and show Claire Perry what real action on climate change looks like.”
Anything to let big business bully its way to getting what it wants without regard to wider opinion is to be deplored. Particularly when the approval process becomes political and the old boys network holds sway!
My first reaction was that Lancashire was the home of the Luddites and has not changed.
The UK desperately needs lower cost and reliable energy sources, fracking is probably the best hope for the future of the UK. We are not exporting enough to cover higher natural gas prices that will follow from oil restrictions: forget renewables as a winter heat source.
If the choice comes down to banning fracking or not eating meat, I know which one I would choose.
https://act.friendsoftheearth.uk/act/stop-government-forcing-fracking-communities
Nottingham actually! And the reason that Heathcoat (of Heathcoat Amery) took his lace-making machine invention down to Tiverton. Perhaps he believed that the local yokels were less militant there
Thanks for the clarification, Mike, your Textiles knowledge massively exceeds mine.
I have been giving Lancashire more prominence in the Luddite movement than I ought!
that is NOT to say that there were not many issues involving concerns about new technology amongst spinners and weavers in Lancashire: there were. Including the Peterloo Massacre (cf the battle of Aldgreave and the Grocer’s daughter kicking the miners! I believe we came as close to civil war as it was possible. That’s adversarial politics for you.)
As somebody has already stated before regarding fracking.
We may of forgotten about mining but mining hasn’t forgotten about us.
I think we are creating problems for ourselves by allowing this to happen now.
Simple solution to Luddites of any stripe. (and anyone else who deliberately stands in the way of technical progress) Give them a taste (a week would/should be enough) of life without electrical power. It was often stated in the 60s to those ‘hippies, malcontents, folk who wanted to destroy Capitalism, Democracy, Market forces’ ..”A one way ticket by ox-cart to N Korea would certainly concentrate their minds wonderfully. Touche!
Is fracking technical progress? Or is it a retro-grade step? Any engineering undertaking, that does not take into account the environment (which includes the people living in that area) are going to get bad press. The fact the government allowed fracking in the face of a public out cry just supports the fact that politicians aren’t in it for the people, they’re in it for the money.
Progress is only progress when it is wanted, progress for progress sake is not progress until it can be used for the betterment of the populous.