Cuadrilla Appeal to Frack Lancashire - Day 17

Heck of a day - nearly 70 individual residents spoke at the appeal... I cried, laughed, applauded, encored and got told off for all of the above along with everyone else who did the same. The Inspector and the legal teams live and breathe this world and the Inspector was snappy and short with us for daring to react naturally, in the moment and honestly - for us, it is a strange setting full of confusion, masses of incomprehensible clauses, laws, amendments, tricks and outright lies... soul destroying on one side to KNOW this is where the government puts its support... and pure beauty on the other witnessing a community united, individuals empowered and truths, poured out packed with wisdom and humanity and sometimes tears.

The Inspector finds emotion a nuisance as every second over-time may cause a moment of over-run. But a room packed with humans fighting quite literally for their lives... is in no way able to contain itself neatly in a bloody package of corporate order.

Other fantastic Nanas spoke as Nanas or as residents... I spoke for RAFF - Residents Action on Fylde Fracking - the first group I joined when I discovered fracking existed. One of the earliest groups in the country. We had taken public meetings to towns and villages in this area and I was moved during my testimony to see faces I recalled from their first ever meetings. I felt horrid in a way too as I could see how hard this has been for them - the Unwelcome Gift of Truth ...once you know, you can't unknow and you can't walk away because you KNOW you are all you have as the government is head cheerleader.

I saw ill-health, tiredness and pain... only made bearable because I also saw warriors for truth, determination, commitment, power, unity and strength.

Exhausted but uplifted too... tomorrow morning is one of the final days - the imporant one where our incredible side sums up. We are going for a big show of gratitude and support - be at Blackpool Football Club for 9:15 if you can make it for this: Defend Lancashire: Last day and summing up day of the Enquiry

Namaste 

Click either of these links for independent. professional news coverage of the appeal:
http://drillordrop.com/
http://www.counterbalance.org.uk/
Click here for archive and live footage:
http://www.cuadrillaplanninginquiry.co.uk/

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No returns

Today I briefly re-visited my past at a business function (impossible to eat if I don't find a way to make work fit somewhere into my week somehow)... it was like when you leave a town for a while, then return to find although your life has been changed - here it remains the same; frozen like that bit in the movie 'Shining' where the bar is always the same people and era. It made me sad and despondent but I don't regret (or maybe just the tiniest bit) the path I ended up on when I realised that the world and government was not as I had allowed myself, to be led to believe.

Truth is surely beautiful even when it is about the ugliest things? This 'movement' made of activists/campaigners/Protectors is full of beauty, full of reasons to believe we can and will eventually all be on the same page of awareness and working together to correct the harms. Until we get there though, this is an exhausting life and although a break/pause is good advice - I don't feel able to heed it.

It's not just the fracking threat that is current, immediate and requiring everything we've got to try to stop it from getting started - but the fact that right now as I sit safely writing and complaining that I'm tired... children are in perilous, terrifying circumstances; trying to escape war, suffering, drought, hunger. THIS is a state of emergency.

Those with the power to do anything to change this – aren't. I find it almost impossible to believe that people like Donald Trump or Boris Johnson could even be considered as potential 'leaders' and because they are being considered – know that this 'system' of government is not a system of government but a facade and behind the facade is blind greed. WE have to act because we're all we seem to have right now.

And more than this - we have to act together against the true problems and not each other - that just does the job for the bad side. The exhaustion in our movement makes us frayed at the edges, raw and sensitive... ruffled feathers could do with soothing of course but we need to remember that as a result of our distractions - more suffering, more harm, more pain is done.

.......................................................................
No Returns

The sacrifices cannot be measured in words

Or heard through brief encounters
Pain this raw, scars this deep, wounds that weep
From truths acknowledged
Are whispered in dialogues and monologues
That go late and are held close
To chests that heave with emotion

No notion on entering through a door once closed
By blissful ignorance and unknowing...
Blown open
Drawn in
Held fast
Thrown about
On waves of revelation
Explanations too unbelievable to believe
We bleed
With the burden of this
Path labelled 'Activist'

Lives forever lost
Goodbyes without choice
Voices too often raised in anger, anguish and grief
Diseasing the joy,
Breaking the imaginings,
Shattering the dreams
That once lullaby-ed life

How to rest in a state of emergency?

How long do we go on
Dissecting the news,
Parading the truths,
Exposing the lies?
Warning! Warning! Warning!
Cries 

Want to hush it away
Make today a better day
Cause it's me
Cause of this
That brings the rain of gloom.
Sadness to the state of play.
There is no time to dance
Barely time to ease away yesterday
Before tomorrow throws it all again.

Glancing over shoulders,
There it is...
That other life from before
Floors filled with light laughter
Bright conversation
Effervescent bubbles of not-knowing
That on the horizon comes a threat

Today there is no bittersweet

Just the sour sting ...and tomorrow brings more.

Whispers Roar

 Time and again we revisit the PRO-fracking 'argument' and in nearly 5 years, it has not improved, learnt, grown or changed. Like all marketing campaigns, they will have thrown their best at this from the start and I think... they're all out of everything and running on empty -which helps 

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Whereas WE ...the anti-fracking movement have grown, learnt, studied, shared, built trust, found new ways to be seen and heard and are evolving to be damned fine at this... especially when you consider there was never a job description or a road map!

I wrote this to 'them':

Whispers Roar

You'll be stopped
dropped fast from agendas
as you scramble to un-write your news feeds
deeds that need to be undone
myths to be un-spun.

You've reached the end
of a finite marketing message
been on re-play loop too long
like an overplayed top 20 song
with nowhere else to go
but down and out.

So we'll win, we'll succeed
we'll be...
triumphant
because you do marketing like a drunkard.

Drooling inconvenient truths
seeping through
the spooling haze of you.

Little Wizard behind a curtain
...gone sheer
mere tiny impotent mortal
no corporate giant at all
no balls
...left to play
time to
go away.

We're picking at your seams
ripping apart your schemes
of domination
ever-growing opposition amassing
harassing at your doors

The whisper
“No more...”
Growing
to a ROAR

Sensitive Receptors & other stuff

Went to Day 5 of Cuadrilla's appeal to overturn Lancashire County Council's rejection of their plans to frack for shale gas in Lancashire.

The circumstance is this:

[In September 2015, Cuadrilla lodged four Appeals to the Secretary of State against the decisions to refuse planning permission for both exploration sites, the monitoring site at Preston New Road and against one of the conditions imposed on the planning permission for the monitoring array at Roseacre Wood. The appeals will be determined on the basis of a co-joined public inquiry and heard by a single inspector. The Secretary of State, under section 79 and paragraph 3 of Schedule 6 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, has directed that he shall determine all the appeals.

This means the inspector will prepare a report and recommendations, which will be forwarded to the Secretary of State for determination. Wendy McKay LLB, Solicitor (non-practising) has been appointed by the Secretary of State as the inspector. The procedure to be followed is set out in the Town and Country Planning Appeals (Inquiry Procedure) (England) Rules 2000 as amended.]

More detail of dates etc HERE



I heard a term throughout the planning appeal today that was unfamiliar... it seemed the impact on individual people and communities was coming under the term "RECEPTOR/s".

This really bothers me; it removes the humanity, the truth of living things, the entity beyond the chemical interactions and reduces us to mere reactions (or not, as they would have us believe).

I was sure I was wrong in some way - that this can't be how we are discussed... so a search gave me the ugly truth on a planning site relating to Environmental Impact Assessments - and there we are; you, me, our children, our loved ones, our neighbours - alongside historic buildings:

"...grouping together certain aspects of the environment into broad receptor groups, for example, birds, bats, humans, historic buildings, etc."

Homogenised, sanitised, inhumane, ugly - I know it's a process and requires definitions but this... just seems so bloody damaging to the perception of impacts raised in planning applications and damagingly de-humanises process.

WE the Receptors? No. WE the people.

*The latest addition to our family arrived this week, my great-niece born 14 Feb 16... a little person, full of potential, full of promise and the very essence of why for many of us, our lives are on hold as we strive for her future. 

Week 2 in the fight for local democracy...

As the appeal to overturn a NO to fracking plans by Cuadrilla against Lancashire County Council (and the residents of Lancashire) enters its second week, here's what's coming up. As a resident of Lancashire, you are welcome to attend this PUBLIC meeting at the Blackpool Football Club: 

FULL programme available to download here
WATCH live here
CATCH UP on previous days here

THIS week's programme:

Tuesday 16 February

Day 5

9.30am until 2pm

PARTY:

Cuadrilla Bowland Limited & Cuadrilla Elswick Limited (CUA)

WITNESS:

Mr Tempany (Landscape) – Roseacre Wood

TIMINGS:

EiC – 45 Mins

Xx LCC – 30 – 45 Mins

Xx RAG/TRWPC – 1 Hour

Questions from third parties – 30 Mins

Rx & Inspector’s questions – 1 & ½ Hrs
….................................................................

Wednesday 17 February

Day 6

10am - 3pm (with short lunch break)

PARTY:

Cuadrilla Bowland Limited & Cuadrilla Elswick Limited (CUA)

WITNESS:

Mr Ojeil (Highways) – Roseacre Wood

TIMINGS:

EiC – 45 Mins

Xx LCC – 30 – 45 Mins

Xx RAG/TRWPC – 1 Hour

Xx CWNPC – 15 Mins

Questions from third parties – 30 Mins

Rx & Inspector’s questions – 1 & ½ Hrs

PLUS EVENING SESSION FOR PUBLIC:

Wednesday 17 February

Day 6

EVENING SESSION FOR INTERESTED PERSONS FOR THE ISSUES AT Roseacre Wood appeals

This commences at 6.30pm – 9.30pm

…...............................................................................................

Thursday 18 February

Day 7

10.00am

PARTY:

North West Chamber of Commerce (NWCOC)

WITNESS:

MS Babs Murphy

TIMINGS:
EiC – 30 Mins

Xx LCC – 20 Mins

Xx FOE – 1 hour

Questions from third parties – 15 Mins

Rx & Inspector’s questions – 30 Mins

WITNESS:

Mr James Bream

TIMINGS:
EiC – 30 Mins

Xx LCC – 20 Mins

Xx FOE – 20 Mins

Questions from third parties – 15 Mins

…..........................................................

Friday 19 February

Day 8

9.30am

WITNESS:

North West Chamber of Commerce (NWCOC) Mr Paul Matich

TIMINGS:

EiC – 1 Hour

Xx LCC – 20 Mins

Xx FOE – 20 Mins

Questions from third parties – 15 Mins

Rx & Inspector’s questions – 30 Mins

WITNESS:

Lancashire County Council (LCC) Mr Steve Maslam – Landscape – Preston New Road & Roseacre Woods

TIMINGS:

EiC – 30 Mins – 1 Hour

Xx CUA – 2 Hours

Rx & Inspector’s questions – 1 Hour

~x~

Big thanks this week to actor (Hulk) Mark Ruffalo for championing Frack Free Lancashire on the Red Carpet at the BAFTA ceremony

Who is Responsible?

How it plays out when you have to go to court with the energy companies after they hurt you and your community - the video at the end of this blog is about the Porter Ranch methane leak (methane mixed with warm California sunshine is turning to formaldehyde now and the health consequences will be devastating) but could easily be any other corporate disaster endured by a communities and individuals.


Here we hear of the tricks, the behind-the-scenes deals and the huge difficulty facing anyone who takes them on - they will always have the best-paid lawyers, powerful connections and vast amounts of money to throw in our path (we the people have only our bodies to throw in their way).


Here in the UK, we are gradually facing the reality before us - not just with plans for unconventional energy like fracking but for all the harms that have already been and continue to be done by these companies. There's an ever-clearer realisation of the tight, almost seamless join between government and corporations... hand-in-hand to the exclusion of us.


I went to the moving and tragic memorial for 7 year old Zane who died 2 years ago as a result of the floods that mixed with the landfill that created the air he then breathed as he slept. His father is in a wheelchair and his mother, although physically healing ...is clearly impacted beyond imagining. They are fighting for the Truth About Zane​ and even the regulatory agencies (same ones we'd get for fracking) are not forthcoming with facts, are clearly not up to the task they are given and appear to be withholding vital information that Zane's family need... and we all need in order to prevent further loss of life.


It is with heavy sadness that we must go on fighting the clearly deranged plans and actions of our own government... why is it this way? Why are WE the regulators, investigators, researchers, protectors, alerts - when our taxes pay whole departments to be? What the hell is this farce of a democracy really, at its core? How do we extract truth from all the powerful, overwhelming blocks to it put there by the very structure of our system of government?


I have no answers but I don't suppose that can matter... in the end it is one foot in front of the other, one document more to digest, one person more to connect with and one more lovely community after another to stand with, until we're done.


What option is there? We are unstoppable because we have no other option.

Shattered Ground - Fracking Documentary