Fighting fracking on the frontline
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No other energy company does more to oppose fracking than we do. As well as running campaigns and providing anti-fracking groups with funds, we recently met with Rhiannon Adam, a photographer who has been documenting the Preston New Road fracking site, and Rose from Friends of the Earth, a charity that are working tirelessly to oppose fracking.
Despite fracking being the most unpopular form of energy ever, the government have pressed ahead with plans and drilling began at Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road site in October 2018.
Since then there have been around 50 small earthquakes in the local area, which have regularly halted work at the site after breaching environmental regulations, and it seems that work may have stopped permanently after Caudrilla were seen to be dismantling equipment at the site at the end of 2018.
So it’s not all doom and gloom. There are a dedicated team of campaigners on the frontline who have given up their ‘normal’ lives to oppose fracking. They’ve moved away from their homes and have set up protection camps at fracking sites - a community of people who are determined to win the fight against fracking.
We recently teamed up with the British Journal of Photography to commission Energy for Change: Fractured Stories, a photography project destined to showcase the dark side of the fracking industry.
Photographer Rhiannon Adam spent four months immersed in daily life at the Preston New Road fracking site. The outcome is a new collection of intimate photographs that tell the stories of the Preston New Road protectors.
This is what Rhiannon had to say about the ongoing project, her reflections on fracking and the approach of Cuadrilla.
We also caught up with Rose from Friends of the Earth – one of the key organisations fighting fracking in the UK. We’re proud to stand alongside them in favour of a cleaner, greener future, rather than starting a whole new fossil fuel industry in the UK that will cause huge harm to local people, communities and business across the country.
Their stance is that if fracking can’t operate within the guidelines set by the government, then it should stop – and we couldn’t agree more.
Fracking is so unpopular with the British public that the government have removed it from their public attitudes tracker – so there’s now no way of knowing just how hated it really is.
And the government have also announced proposals to change the planning process for fracking, meaning that fracking companies could drill straight away, without the need for a planning application, environmental assessment or proper local democratic participation. The time to act is now.
You can do your bit to help fight fracking by switching to Ecotricity today. When you do, we’ll donate up to £60 to the People Power Fund, which supports the activists fighting fracking on the frontline.
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