So it came as a bit of a surprise to me to discover that Cheshire is now on the frontlines against fracking in the UK.
The day after I returned to Britain I saw in the local paper that there was going to be a protest in Upton, ten miles from my parent’s home, and so within 48 hours of being back in this country I found myself cycling out to join the protesters. Like many days in these dreary isles the sky was grey, dampening the area with a resilient drizzle. “Great,” I thought, “I’ll be shivering and soaked in no time.”
Rolling up to the “busy” (for a suburb) road intersection where the protest was gathering I saw a 12-foot (4 metres) model fracking rig with tinsel on the top and was quickly greeted with tea and biscuits. Far from being cold, the constant input of hot liquid kept me going for the next few hours as I chatted with the protesters.
These weren’t the kind of seasoned protesters I’d seen in Paris at COP21 just a week before. Most of the people I talked to said they hadn’t been an “activist” even one year ago, and had previously accepted that the government would watch out for them and do the right thing throughout their life. But then they started reading up on fracking. And they got upset very quickly. With the enormous threats to housing prices, farmland, and the rivers and canals in the area, the average, local people started to get upset. The outcome of a recent poll showed that 85% of Upton residents were against fracking, and the new Labour MP bucked the national trend (that was scared into voting Tory) by getting elected on a strong anti-fracking platform—the Greens stepped back and didn’t even run against him!
It’s pretty clear the frackers don’t have any social license in Upton. We stood with our signs and cups of tea for a couple of hours, hailed by a constant honking of support from passing vehicles. Finally, we picked up the signs and “marched” along the road to the Upton Community Protection Camp. I say “marched”, although there were none of the normal activist chants and rallying cries. At one point someone mentioned some anti-fracking carols, yet people seemed more interested in chatting with their neighbours.
As we walked up to the camp I saw an impressive structure of wooden palettes and scaffolding, adorned with an array of signs. After being welcomed at the “guardhouse” an abundance of minced pies and tea appeared as we entered the “Solidari-Tea Hut”. Again, most of the residents were locals and talked with a fiery determination that the fracking simply would never happen. “We’ll make it so expensive for them that it’ll be impossible for them to drill,” said Phil, one of the long-term residents of the camp.
In terms of defences several of the residents comfortably walked around wearing a harness with climbing equipment hanging from it, prepared on a moment’s notice to climb one of the many tripods, tree-houses and other structures that would make their removal from the land a tricky and prolonged process. They’d even built themselves a moat—not big enough to stop many people from jumping across, but deep enough to stop most trucks in their tracks. The moat had a floating ducky and sharks. Finally, the camp has released images of an entrance to tunnels, although the tight security culture prevented me from seeing inside.
The camp has done well to gain support from many of the local residents of Upton. Although they seem to be able to get articles into the local paper, the Chester Chronicle, their ability to make their own media seems to be lacking, and even after four days I’ve not managed to find a single image online from the protest (the protest expected people from the camp to join them, yet they never materialized). To their credit their facebook page is active with photos and memes added several times a week. From what I have observed at the Unist'ot'en, producing video is a critical part of getting the broader public on side for land defence projects such as this, yet no one could assure me that they had any plans to do so.
Although some at the camp claimed they had plenty of coverage nationally, many of the protesters on the street didn’t think they (both the protesters and camp) were doing a good job and were worried they lacked national support. It seems to me that without such support the camp could be evicted without a national outcry. And given David Cameron has just removed the ability for local councils to determine their own fracking fate, it most certainly is a national issue. Fortunately, the intrusive company IGas has seen its share prices tumbling for months to a third of their value since June 2015, so maybe they’ll collapse into bankruptcy before they order the bailiff to attack.
Of course, this fight is only the beginning. David Cameron’s corporate masters want to poke holes all over my beloved Cheshire, which would likely result in the deaths of much of her livestock, farmland, rolling green hills and beautiful rivers and forests. A solid win against fracking in Upton would be major victory in beating back the violence of fracking across the nation, so my hope is that the success of Upton Community Protection Camp would scare off other potential frackers, and inspire many other communities to become land defenders to protect of their fragile, magnificent lands.
See more photos of the camp here: https://goo.gl/photos/TzY5tfZFf7UaWrUX9
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