Campaign against Climate Change
www.campaigncc.org
07903316331
For immediate release
Tuesday 14th September
“CAMP FRACK”
Anti-‘fracking’* protest camp to be set up near Southport
This Weekend 17th-18th September
“CAMP FRACK” will be set up near Southport in protest against the ongoing exploratory drilling activities in
the Blackpool/Preston area. The location will be at Old Manor Farm, Shore Road, near Hesketh Bank village.
This is within a mile or two of the active drilling operation conducted by Cuadrilla Resources near Marsh Nurseries,
off Marsh Road, between the villages of Hesketh Bank and Banks. See map here.
Activists will gather there on the evening of Friday 16th, to stay for the weekend of 17th -18th September, in order to
protest against the threatened massive expansion of the practice of ‘hydraulic fracturing’ for shale gas within the
UK. Workshops on the topic will be held and an ongoing national UK campaign against “fracking”will be
organised..
Photo-opportunity: A protest outside the nearby drilling site is planned for Sunday 18th at around 3.00 pm
Those at Camp Frack will include members of Campaign against Climate Change, South Lakes Action on Climate
Change, ‘Frack-off’, Ribble Estuary Against Fracking (REAF), Friends of the Earth, the Green Party and the
Cooperative Society. Representatives from the local community attending will include Sefton Councillor.Sue
Maguire (Lib Dem) West Lancs Borough Councillor John Hodson (Labour) and Phil Mitchell, Leader of
Blackpool Green Party. Activists will be onsite setting up camp all Friday (16th) and taking down Monday (19th).
Sonny Khan from Cumbrian charity South Lakes Action on Climate Change said
“Hydraulic fracturing companies present shale gas as a safe low carbon fuel but the evidence is that there are very
serious risks associated with fracking which have yet to be addressed. The US Environmental Protection Agency,
at the direction of Congress, is currently studying the potential impacts of fracking on ground water. We are also
seeing links emerging between fracking and small earthquakes in the US and now the UK. Fracking has come under
a ban in New York and New Jersey, as well as in France, Quebec province and the Swiss canton of Freibourg. So
why are we rushing headlong into developing fracking despite inadequate studies on the risks and dangers? As a
group with many members based in Lancashire and Cumbria, our concern is that fracking is being pushed upon us
and that our real concerns over safety and greenhouse gas emissions are being brushed aside in the rush for profits.
We will be coming to Camp Frack this September to join others from around the country to coordinate a national
effort to end fracking in the UK”.
Phil Thornhill of the Campaign against Climate Change said
“There is no place for the exploitation of any new source of fossil fuel in a national energy policy that represents
any realistic effort to avert the catastrophic destabilisation of global climate. What’s at stake is the direction we’re
taking in the fight against climate change – towards a zero carbon economy as fast as possible through the rapid
development of renewable technologies - or towards the endless deferral of that goal as we exploit every last drop
of every new ‘unconventional’ fossil fuel that we can find. The second option guarantees we will be too late and
we will see disasters on a scale a hundred times that of the current famine in Somalia. In the UK the battle against
shale gas has now become the new front line in the battle against climate change. This camp will just be the first
shot of a war which will not end until we have vanquished ‘fracking’ from this island”
Labour Councillor John Hodgson from West Lancs. Borough Council said
"I have been working with the residents group "Ribble Estuary Against Fracking" who will be at Camp Frack to
talk to, and share information with, people from the area and I would encourage as many people as possible to go
along to find out what fracking actually involves and the damage it could cause to our coast line."
Southport Liberal Democrat Councillor Sue McGuire said
"As far as I'm concerned fracking in Banks and on the Fylde will impact on everyone within the Ribble Estuary and
that includes Southport and Preston. I don't think we can simply believe everything that Caudrilla's PR company
print so I'm going to Camp Frack to find out as much as I can about the hydraulic fracturing process."
Updated info http://www.campaigncc.org/campfrack
Contacts
Campaign against Climate Change, 5, Caledonian Road, London N1 9DX 02078339311 info@campaigncc.org
Phil Thornhill, National Coordinator phil.thornhill@campaigncc.org 07903316331
Fiona Brookes, Campaigner, fiona@campaigncc.org 07545330890
Sonny Khan, South Lakes Action on Climate Change and CCC Steering Group member sonnykhan@hotmail.co.uk,
07957313437
*Note: “Fracking” or “hydraulic fracturing” is a technique that allows the extraction of previously untappable natural gas
from relatively non-porous shale beds. It requires a large number of wells and involves drilling deep down and then usually
outwards horizontally into the shale beds where the rock is then fractured by forcing down into it large quantities of water,
mixed with sand and chemicals, under high pressure. The sand, or other ‘proppant’ sticks in micro-fissures, keeping them
open and allowing the gas to flow back up the drilled well.
In the US where ‘fracking’ has taken off in a big way there have been numerous cases of contamination of ground water, well
blow-outs, and ground and air pollution. Famously, tap water has contained so much methane it has been possible to set light
to it. These numerous incidents have provoked a storm of protest in the US and have even inspired an Oscar-nominated film
‘Gasland’ by director Josh Fox.
“Fracking” is now coming to the UK. Active operations have started in the Blackpool/Southport area but have been suspended
due to earthquakes in the area they are suspected to have caused.. Oil and gas companies are making applications in an ever
increasing number of other areas around the UK, already including South Wales, Kent, the Mendips, Scotland and Sussex.