Communities fighting onshore oil and gas
The Weald Action Group is calling for artists to submit work for a special online art sale in October 2020.
The sale is to raise funds for a legal challenge to Surrey County Council’s decision to allow the drilling of four more oil wells – and 20 years of oil production – at Horse Hill, near Horley in Surrey.
Sarah Finch, a campaigner from Redhill, has been granted permission by the Appeal Court for a Judicial Review of Surrey County Council’s decision to allow the drilling of four new oil wells and 20 years of oil production at Horse Hill, near Gatwick in Surrey.
Sarah Finch and many others had objected to the proposed development by UK Oil and Gas for a range of reasons, including climate change. When Surrey County Council approved the plans in September 2019, Sarah issued a legal challenge, with support from the Weald Action Group. She claimed that the Council had failed to consider the direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions of the project, and the government’s Net Zero target for carbon emissions.
Update 3 August 2020: The decision to refuse planning permission for oil and gas exploration at Dunsfold has now been ruled invalid following technical problems during the committee meeting, which was conducted online. There will now be further training for councillors and the decision will be taken again.
Continue reading “UKOG’s application to drill at Dunsfold refused”
Campaigners are celebrating a significant weakening of an injunction, which set out to target peaceful protest at unconventional oil sites in Surrey and Sussex.
The High Court has agreed a variation of the Order by UK Oil and Gas (UKOG) against ‘Persons Unknown’, removing clauses relating to their supply chain, combining together to protest and ‘gathering and loitering’ at the sites.
The government has no plans to extend the current temporary moratorium on hydraulic fracturing to include other forms of well stimulation, according to a letter from Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth, Kwasi Kwarteng.
Continue reading “Request to extend moratorium to include all forms of fracking refused”
Residents of Balcombe in West Sussex have welcomed the withdrawal of oil company Angus Energy’s planning application for a three-year well test on the edge of the village.
However, they warn that the fight goes on, as a company statement to shareholders announcing the withdrawal on 1 May also said that Angus intends to submit an updated application for a shorter test within six weeks.
An application by oil company UK Oil and Gas PLC (UKOG) to strike out five women from Surrey and Sussex who oppose their interim injunction failed at the High Court today.
A day long wrangle over court procedures failed to resolve any of the main issues in the UK Oil and Gas (UKOG) injunction case, which is being opposed by five fossil fuel campaigners from Surrey and Sussex.
It also failed to involve any of the so-called possible defendants which the oil company claim to number 116, despite two having come forward to remove their names from it.
Lawyers for five peaceful protesters supported by the Weald Action Group have applied to the High Court to bring an end to an interim injunction against protest at oil sites in Surrey and Sussex in line with a new Court of Appeal ruling.
A recent judgment, made on a case brought by fur company Canada Goose, says it’s unlawful to allow interim injunctions against “persons unknown” to drag on and vindicated the protesters’ argument that companies such as UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) should stop misusing Court procedures to get wide orders against lawful protesters through the unfair device of persons unknown.
The Weald Action Group has objected to IGas’s application for a new Environmental Permit for its Singleton site in West Sussex.
The new permit would allow it to reinject up to 17,000m3 of water a year, with a monthly limit of 2,500m3. The water is produced from oil and gas sites in the Weald, and would contain naturally-occurring radioactive material, known as NORM. Continue reading “Wastewater injection at Singleton threatens to pollute groundwater and trigger earthquakes”