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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... ssex-shale

Anti-fracking protesters halt Sussex shale gas operation

This is spectacularly bad - reporting by the Grauniad!

This drilling operation is NOT gas, NOT shale, and NOT fracking!

Talk about incompetent.

A group of around a dozen protesters succeeded in blocking the lorry. They wrapped yellow and black crime scene tape around the equipment and hung on it a banner that read "no more dirty energy".

I hope the protesters walked or cycled to the site.

But it's preparation for it. What else are Caudrilla there for?

JohnB wrote:But it's preparation for it. What else are Caudrilla there for?

Oil

They will be flaring any gas they find, which is a good enough reason to protest, but the headline was spectacularly wrong.

RalphW wrote:
This drilling operation is NOT gas, NOT shale, and NOT fracking!

They won't be doing any fracking on the first, vertical, 3000ft exploratory well, however, Cuadrilla's speciality lies not with easy oil.

Must be some sort of fashionable protest as companies have been producing oil and gas in Surrey & Sussex for several years without incident.

"We are trying to carefully balance the needs of everyone and we will continue to show a proportionate response to the challenge we are facing," said Supt Steve Whitton from Sussex Police. Fail.

Police using pressure points on those protecting Balcombe today.

This is political policing at it's most visible. Stand with us. Stand up for what is right. Stand against what is wrong.

Directions to camp: http://greatgasgala.org.uk/map/

Illegal. That's CT2 in the centre, CW588 in the yellow on the left of the picture and to the right of the picture, with three stripes on his lapel is CT581. And the puppet master? Lord Browne, chairman of Cuadrilla Resources.

And this video shows how many policemen it takes to get a lorry onto the site.

And they're not even fracking!

(Yet)

That is CW 568 in the photo not CW588

Ah thanks, W, it was at the limit of clarity on my screen.

I doubt it is illegal.

Blocking a public highway is illegal as is attempting to barricade private land. Like it or loathe it the Police have a right to use reasonable force to enforce the law.

Why can't the protestors protest with out getting in the way of everyone else?

Because that doesn't work. Tried, tested and failed.

JavaScriptDonkey wrote:Why can't the protestors protest with out getting in the way of everyone else?

Some things are both legal and wrong. Many things folk (are quite right to) protest fall into the category. When the wrong thing is legal, effective protests tend to be illegal.