Communities fighting onshore oil and gas
The Weald Action Group will be going to the High Court to challenge oil company UK Oil and Gas Plc (UKOG)’s attempts to stifle protest – but not until next year.
On Friday 15 November, Weald Action Group representatives went to court to reach a decision about the interim injunction that was issued to UKOG in September 2018.
Continue reading “UKOG injunction to be challenged in the High Court”
The surprise announcement of a moratorium on fracking in England earlier this month left many people confused about which operations had been banned.
Campaigners across the Weald received celebratory messages from people overjoyed that proposed drilling at Horse Hill, Balcombe and elsewhere would be stopped in its tracks. Sadly that’s not the case. Continue reading “Why doesn’t the fracking moratorium cover acidising too?”
A local campaigner has launched a Crowdfunder appeal to raise funds for a judicial review of Surrey County Council’s decision to allow massive expansion of oil drilling at Horse Hill in Surrey.
Sarah Finch is looking to raise £25,000 to cover legal costs.
Continue reading “Support Surrey Oil Legal Challenge: Crowdfunder launched”
The new ban on fracking should be extended to cover all fossil fuel sites using extreme techniques, like acidisation and matrix acidising, says the Weald Action Group.
Local campaign group, Brockham Oil Watch, launched an open letter today to regulators calling for an extension of the definition of fracking https://brockhamoilwatch.org/4993-2/
Continue reading “Fracking moratorium should cover extreme oil and gas sites in South East”
“We need to act now – urgently – to bring greenhouse emissions down to net zero. Not by 2050 but as fast as humanly possible, in fact faster, in order to prevent catastrophic and irreversible changes to our climate that are going to result in devastating impacts on our planet and cause incalculable suffering and loss of life.
“Scientists have been raising the alarm [about climate change] for over 40 years and nothing has actually been done. Simply telling the facts impartially is what we have been trained to do. But scientists are now stepping out of their research labs and from behind their desks…. We have an obligation to humanity to come out onto the streets and take action.”
Dr Emily Grossman, molecular biologist, geneticist and co-founder of Scientists for Extinction Rebellion, at the Horse Hill Rebel Alliance’s ‘Climate Emergency’ demonstration at the Horse Hill oil site on 26 October.
Campaigners from the Weald Action Group were deeply concerned and disappointed when Councillors on the Surrey County Council Planning and Regulatory Committee voted on 11 September to give the go-ahead to massive expansion of oil drilling at Horse Hill, near Horley.
Horse Hill Developments Ltd now has the green light to drill five new wells (one for water reinjection, which is implicated in causing earthquakes elsewhere) and commercial oil production for 25 years.*
Judgement from the UKOG Injunction was handed down on 3rd September 2018
The defendants say: “We welcome the partial support the judge gave to our case but we’re going to fight on. Oil companies cannot be allowed to set the legal framework for protest in this way. Dissent is not a crime and the penalties for breaching an injunction are severe”.
Six women from Surrey and Sussex fighting against an interim injunction application by UK Oil and Gas have vowed to fight on after a High Court judge approved it in part.