Today Anna is working from a temporary office outside the council offices in Preston, joining in with the last-ditch attempt to stop fracking in Lancashire. Tomorrow, the council will make their decision.
Petitions can be found on Friends of the Earth and 38 Degrees (petition ended).
We are a Lancashire business
Anna is Lancashire born and bread, and Joey is from Yorkshire. Last year, when we came to buy our first home, we could have moved to anywhere! We even looked at Germany and Poland! But roots are strong, and we choose Clitheroe in Lancashire. The shadow of Pendle Hill, the castle, the wildlife and clean air… we can’t get enough of it! But now, our wonderful county, and half the county for that matter, is under threat!
A noisy and fun demo
I am writing this blog from the Anti-fracking demo. Here I am…
The demo is sprawled along the road outside the council offices, and down the side of the building too. It’s hard to estimate how many are here as people are coming and going all the time. Over the day it will be thousands I am sure. The mood is cheerful and relaxed, with dogs, children and a samba band amongst the crowd.
There are all sorts of people here, young, old, black, white, your common garden hippy (like myself) and your decidedly-normal-in-every-way sorts. There are lots of locals, and some from further away who have come in by coach to help out – including these guys from Lincolnshire.
There were lots of young people providing entertainment throughout the day, including dance, hoola and poi. They had a fab drum made from a barrel that they banged on the floor to encorage the carnival atmosphere.
Honking Locals
As people dive past the council officers, through the heart of the demo, they honk their horns in support. Some even wave anti-fracking cards out of the window. The anti-fracking feeling here is clearly very strong. Honkers included a royal mail van, a bus, a range rover, several cabbies, a white van man, a lady with a vase of flowers on her dashboard and many many more!
I took some video around rush hour.
Why we oppose fracking
We could ramble on for hours, but here is a good summary:
- If we are to avoid the worst effects of climate change, the shale gas must stay in the ground along with most of the other fossil fuel reserves.
- It may not be be safe and it’s certainly not clean, kind to wildlife or humans who live near by.
- The level of destruction in large countries like Australia and America is horrific: how bad will the impact of fracking in a small, densely populated place like Lancashire?
- We don’t think it’s necessary: largescale roll-out of renewable is possible now, we don’t need a gas transition.
- We are in favour of small businesses and local economies. The petrochemicals industry is the opposite of that.
- It’s contributing to the “carbon bubble” which is going to cause huge economic instability.
What next?
We will find out tomorrow what the council say, if it’s a yes, we are not sure how many more opportunities there will be to object before these fracking operations get under way. We will take as many opportunities as we can!
