Friday 23 August 2013

Worthing Against Fracking meeting on September 6


Fracking has hit the national headlines in recent weeks, as concerned citizens protest outside the Cuadrilla test site in Balcombe, West Sussex. With much of the media taking the side of global big business against the people of Sussex and England,Worthing Against Fracking aims to get the FACTS across to the public.

FACT: The scale of the threat to our countryside is deliberately being played down by the fracking industry. Each well produces tiny amounts of energy and so thousands of wells would be needed in Sussex alone to make fracking profitable. With all the 24/7 sites, access roads,  pipelines, tankers and night-time flaring, this would mean an horrific industrialisation of our lovely county.

FACT: Worthing and its downland are at risk from future fracking and are pencilled in on government maps. And  the South Downs National Park offers no protection to our downland - ask the villagers of Fernhurst, West Sussex, which is in the park and is having to fight off fracking plans.

FACT: Fracking is dangerous and risks contaminating water, air and soil by pumping toxic chemicals into the earth. In the USA families affected by fracking have been legally gagged and the government passed a special law  (the “Halliburton loophole”) exempting fracking firms from regulations protecting water supplies. Fracking will also worsen climate change. Meanwhile, each  well needs two million gallons of fresh water. Where’s that coming from?

If you want to get involved in fighting the threat of fracking, or if you want more information about the process,  please come along to our public meeting from 7pm to 9.30pm on Friday September 6 at the Sidney Walter Centre, Sussex Road, Worthing BN11 1DS. Fracking expert Ian R Crane will be there, along with campaigners including Marina Pepper, one of those arrested for peacefully protesting in Balcombe.

Thursday 15 August 2013

March for a frack-free Sussex!




WAF would love to see as many Worthing folk as possible up on the front line at Balcombe.

Sunday August 18 is a particularly good time to go, as there is a family-friendly march from Balcombe rail station to the fracking site. 

People will be carrying symbols of the sustainable future that they want to create in place of community threatening, climate changing, ecologically damaging fossil fuels.

The march starts at 3pm.  If you catch the 1.42pm train from Worthing, then change just the once at  Haywards Heath, you will arrive at Balcombe in plenty of time - at 2.30pm, with half an hour to spare. It's just a 48-minute train ride, so no excuses!

At the same time, the No Dash for Gas Reclaim the Power event will be underway, so there will be plenty to see and do up at Balcombe. 

A real surge of public outrage at the threat of fracking is now building up, despite all the attempts by the oil and gas industry and its friends in the government to pull the wool over our eyes.

This week, the Argus in Brighton revealed that the risk that drinking water in Sussex could be contaminated by fracking chemicals was known by the Government more than a year ago.

Previously secret documents show that ministers were privately briefed by the Environment Agency (EA) that fracking near aquifers – underground rocks which contain water – should not be permitted.

But the EA’s head of climate change later changed the wording on a public statement related to the issue so as not to create “too stark a message” about shale gas drilling.
 
Fracking threatens our health, our communities, our environment, our climate and our future.
Working together in our communities we can defeat Cuadrilla and build a better future.


We wunt be fooled and we wunt be druv! 

* STOP PRESS * Worthing Against Fracking has organised a public meeting, with speakers, for Friday September 6. It's at the Sidney Walter, Centre, Sussex Road, Worthing BN11 1DS from 7pm to 9.30pm. More details later.   

Tuesday 6 August 2013

Join our new campaign!




Worthing Against Fracking is a new campaign group formed at a packed open meeting at the Sidney Walter Centre in Sussex Road on the evening of Thursday August 1.

WAF is extremely concerned at the threat of fracking (hydraulic fracturing) to the health and environment of Sussex. It is also disturbed by government documents showing a fracking licence has been offered for the Worthing area itself, including our beautiful downland, source of our local water supplies.


The threat to the Worthing area is confirmed by an interactive map from Friends of the Earth, showing areas designated for fracking,


Our aims at the moment are twofold:

1. To encourage people to oppose the current attempt by Cuadrilla to start fracking in Balcombe, West Sussex. We urge Worthing people to travel up to Balcombe (an easy train journey) and also to voice their support for the protesters there through all possible channels. Balcombe is the front line of the fight against the fracking threat. If the industry can be stopped there, there is hope for the rest of the countryside.

2. To spread information about fracking in the Worthing area. The reality of the process and its implications are not well known. As the websites linked below will show, fracking threatens to poison our water supplies, pollute our air and soil, destroy wildlife, create light pollution at night and generally steal from us everything we love most about Sussex. It’s not the odd well here and there we’re talking about, but 6,000 or more across the county, and with them all the new access roads, tankers, pipelines and other infrastructure which would result in the permanent industrialisation of our landscape.

WAF welcomes all new supporters! Come and get involved! You can contact us via WAF(at)greenmail.net or find us on Facebook. We will provide updates here of our activities.

Links

Frack Off article on Sussex

Frack Free Balcombe

No Dash for Gas – action camp at Balcombe

Sussex Wildlife Trust on fracking

Bianca Jagger says "Stop this fracking nightmare in Balcombe"

Superb 18-minute video exposing fracking dangers and lies

Brilliant video rant on fracking by “Artist Taxi Driver”

Article in The Ecologist

Friends of the Earth fracking info

Green Party leader speaks out

Fracktured Future video with Ian R Crane

Facebook links