Just a wink before Christmas, when we were all settling down to our long winter’s nap, the government made a u-turn on their promise to ban fracking in National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. https://www.foe.co.uk/blog/drinking-water-national-parks-fracking-firing-line Thanks to campaigners, and a stronger anti-fracking stance by Labour, companies will not be allowed to drill from the surface in National Parks in order to frack. But they will still be allowed to frack under and around them. Campaigners succeeded in getting the government to drop plans to allow fracking directly through drinking water aquifers. But fracking will still be allowed in the areas supplying drinking water aquifers. The Government also published new licences – the ones that had been under review to see if special nature sites would be impacted. https://www.foe.co.uk/news/large-new-areas-opened-fracking-risk-government The new licences in the South East cover much of the Isle of Wight, a patch north and east of Andover, Hampshire, another north of Bognor Regis, West Sussex, and one around Lingfield, Surrey. Most of the new licences were in the north, across the Bowland Shale. https://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/climate/issues/uk_fracking_map_41274 These announcements came just days after the Paris Climate Change deals and mean that thousands more people could face fracking near their homes. Many new anti-fracking groups have sprung up all around the country as a result. Other policy and legal changes relating to fracking were also announced before Christmas - see below. Horse Hill update UKOG, the company doing exploratory drilling at Horse Hill near Crawley and Gatwick, have had their application for an ‘oil flow test’ approved by the Environment Agency. The test is likely to begin very soon, bringing commercial extraction a step closer. Billingshurst update The Broadford Bridge site near Billingshurst in West Sussex was due to be drilled in January 2014. Happily it remains at peace, as Celtique Energie and its partner Magellan are involved in a legal dispute over finances. However, local people are remaining vigilant and are organising awareness-raising events (see below). Balcombe update Cuadrilla still have permission to flow-test the well they drilled back in 2013, and could come back at any moment – but they have to give us six weeks’ notice. Sunday January 31st, National Gathering 2016 On the morning of the 31st, people are gathering all over the country at different locations under the banner of No Fracking Way. In the South East so far there is a Horsham gathering: https://www.facebook.com/events/1692468644330856/ a Balcombe gathering: https://www.facebook.com/events/570589436428451/ and one on the Isle of Wight: https://www.facebook.com/events/163897067309140/ Follow the links to get full details. Balcombe – No Fracking Way Members of Frack Free Sussex, No FiBS (No Fracking in Balcombe Society) and FFBRA (Frack Free Balcombe Residents Association) invite you to the event BALCOMBE - NO FRACKING WAY. This is national gathering happening in many cities, towns and villages across the country. Let's stand together and say NO FRACKING WAY! This is a spur-of-the-moment event, riding on the outrage against the government's backtracking on their promise not to frack underneath our national parks and AONBs. It is picking up momentum right across the UK. We shall be gathering outside the Lower Stumble drill site at 11am on Sunday January 31st for a group photo. Do try and go. It will be a good way for campaigners across the nation to show solidarity with each other. https://www.facebook.com/events/570589436428451/ Tuesday February 9th, a trip to Blackpool A protest is called by Frack Free Lancashire and supported by Friends of the Earth. It will take place outside Blackpool FC stadium where the public inquiry will be sitting for its first day to decide on Cuadrilla’s appeal against the Lancashire Council rejections of two fracking applications. The inquiry could allow the Secretary of State to overturn the council’s decision, so the stakes could hardly be higher. It’s a Tuesday, but if anyone is free it would be great to show support for the people of Lancashire. They came to help Balcombe… 9am -11am near Blackpool FC’s stadium, (exact location to be finalised). https://www.facebook.com/events/557205317781762/ Paul Mobbs on fracking Environmental journalist Paul Mobbs published his take on the government's ideological stance on fracking (as well as a range of other issues) in this thought-provoking article in The Ecologist. This is the section on unconventional oil and gas extraction: "Fracking distractions – why shale gas is a proxy for a more damaging ideological agenda December 21st 2015 The Department of Energy and Climate Change made various announcements last Thursday: from cuts to renewable energy subsidies to a new review of the feed-in tariff scheme to new data on household energy efficiency which showed that the level of home energy improvements is collapsing as cuts to the green deal and other schemes take effect. What really grabbed the headlines though were the 132 new oil and gas exploration licences, coming so soon after the commitments to cut carbon emissions given the week before in Paris. On balance, however, these were not the most significant announcements on this issue. We knew the fracking licences were coming – and the industry's strategy has been apparent for a while. What the licence issue masked was the announcement of new regulatory standards – known as the 'Regulatory Roadmap'. Back in 2013, when these standards were first promoted, we were told that regulation would be "gold-plated". Now it seems the plating has become rather tarnished by these new vague standards. Weakened by changes to the planning and environmental law in the interim, they no longer provide the regulatory protection and guarantee of local accountability they did two years ago. Perhaps the most significant change sneaked past the media's gaze last Thursday were the changes to the permitted development rules for oil and gas operations. This allows for further well drilling for monitoring boreholes around well sites, and for seismic surveys, without requiring the hurdle of a separate planning application – and its associated requirement for public consultation. This again raises the level of environmental intrusion permitted by Government policy without local regulation and accountability. 'Fracking' might be a bad policy, but what makes such bad decisions possible are the standards of conduct within political system itself – and its currently low regard for the public's wishes. Contrary to their repeated assertions, the Government do not have a popular mandate for radical change. They received just 37% of the vote on a 66% turnout in May's election – meaning that only a quarter of eligible voters actually voted Conservative. Shortly after the 132 licences were announced last week, a new on-line petition, https://www.change.org/p/pledgenvda-i-pledge-to-take-non-violent-direct-action-against-unconventional-energy-techniques-fracking-coal-seam-gas-coal-bed-methane-underground-coal-gasification-etc, began on Change.org. The petition asks people to pledge to take non-violent direct action against fracking. I urge people to participate in this initiative – to take personal responsibility for the irresponsible governance of our country by signing the pledge, and take action against these demonstrably wrong decisions. However, I would ask that you don't just target unconventional oil and gas companies. We must also act against those who are the primary enablers of this process: The Cabinet, and the minsters of the Department of Energy and Climate Change. It would appear that under the Government's current vision of executive power, any opposition, however factually well-founded, appears to be considered a threat. More than that, our leading politicians are quite openly planning to run their extreme, ideologically- driven vision for change for years to come – and are engineering our political system to enable that. Any opposition to their greater political project is being systemically crushed – the most recent example being the House of Lords, the 'reform' of which was also announced last week. Are recent events also a sign of a generally dictatorial, Putin-esque stance against citizens groups who oppose Government policy? Perhaps. Certainly, under the guise of preventing radicalisation in schools, the police are highlighting envir­onmental activists and anti-fracking protesters as a threat to the state. More disturbingly, the dismissal of European court judgements that conflict with national policy objectives, recently enacted in Russia, appears to be modelled on a proposal by David Cameron back in January 2012. Fracking is, based on the available evidence, an unwarranted policy; but the ideological objective behind these policies is far more significant than the process itself. The reality is that we cannot address one without addressing the other. We need not a change of government, but a change of governance in order to move towards a more sustainable policy framework on energy and the environment." Click here for the full article with references: http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2986718/fracking_plans_are_driving_an_even_more_damaging_ideological_agenda.html What will they do with all the fracking waste? One of the biggest headaches for the government and oil and gas industry is whatever to do with all the waste water from fracking. Between 30 and 70 per cent of the frack fluid whacked down the well comes back. It comes back laced with salt and heavy metals and often radioactivity leached out from the depths. Treating this polluted water presents huge problems. Injecting it underground (as is done in the USA, causing earthquakes and pollution) is hugely problematic too. The government had promised not to allow injection of waste fracking water in the UK. Now it seems they have done a u-turn on this too. The waste issue could or at least should be a show-stopper for fracking in the UK. Here are two important articles published in the last week by experts in the field: UK failing to learn U.S. lessons on fracking waste water - http://energyandcarbon.com/uk-failing-lessons-fracking-waste-water/ http://www.after-oil.co.uk/fracking_wastewater.htm What can I do? Here is a brilliant site that updates week by week things you can do in the fracking fight: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxuaTIRbyCDhNllLWFZETzVWWlE/view?pref=2&pli=1 Ruth to the rescue! Ruth Hayhurst's site is an excellent, factual, very readable, up-to-date round-up of the progress of fracking in the UK so far: http://drillordrop.com/2016/01/01/what-to-watch-in-2016/ Again, if you have not yet divested your own energy supply from those who support fracking and fossil fuels we urge you to do so - and spread the word. The more people refuse to accept their energy from fossil fuel dinosaurs, the less we are likely to see of Cuadzilla and friends. http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/ Here's to an active New Year of campaigning! All the best From No FiBS