Liz Truss’s speech may well be remembered for the anti-fracking protesters from Greenpeace who held up a banner asking, “Who voted for this”? Who indeed? It seems that the Tories have short memories when it comes to the environment and even less understanding of public feeling if you try and mess with their green and pleasant land.
I have firsthand experience of this. It was my team at Friends of the Earth (I headed up the England Team) who campaigned from the get go against Cuadrilla’s attempts to frack in Lancashire.
Anti-fracking protests
Cuadrilla started drilling in Lancashire, first in Preese Hall and Grange Hill in 2011 and then in Westby in 2012. Two tremors were felt which were later linked to fracking of the well drilled at Preese Hall. Undeterred, Cuadrilla decided to chance their arm in Balcombe in leafy West Sussex and got a licence to begin exploratory drilling in 2013.
In what was to become known as the Battle of Balcombe, a new army of environmentalists emerged, led not by environmental pressure groups but – shock, horror – by the people who actually lived there. Sure, people like Friends of the Earth helped that community (and I spent a lot of my working days there) but it was the power of that local community that really defined and led the anti-fracking campaign.
The difference from Lancashire was that by 2013 the full impacts of fracking were, rather like fracking wells, sinking in. For example, the risks to our groundwater were beginning to be better understood. This is what the British Geological Survey had to say in 2012:
“Groundwater may be potentially contaminated by extraction of shale gas both from the constituents of shale gad itself, from the formulation and deep injection of water containing a cocktail of additives used for hydraulic fracturing and from flowback water which may have a high content of saline formation water.”
Public health and environmental impact of fracking
Risks to public health with gas emissions started to be talked about given that hazardous pollutants are produced at all stages of the shale gas production process. In June 2013, the Guardian reported findings from the influential Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) suggesting that methane leaks from American fracking sites were offsetting any benefits to climate change.
“We have to deal with the methane emissions – whether they are large, which I think is unlikely, or whether they are small”, said Eileen Claussen, president of C2ES.
But it was the impact to the wider environment and infrastructure that really worried the inhabitants of Balcombe. This was not middle England worried about their house prices (although I’m sure there were some concerns) but a village who recognised the massive disruption to their part of the world. And who knew that fracking was not a solution to future energy needs.
The site for the drilling in Balcombe, just outside the village, was less than a mile from the Ardingly Reservoir, and near to the River Ouse, and the London to Brighton Grade 2 listed viaduct. The proposed well was expected to be 3,000 feet (910m) deep with a possible 2,500 feet (760m) horizontal leg if necessary. Residents expressed concerns that waterways could be poisoned, and the ecology of the locality forever.
Sheer scale of a fracking operation
It is also the size and number of vehicles required to service a fracking site that is so concerning. And it’s the noise.
Each stage of the process uses approximately 200,000 gallons of fracking fluid containing 75 tons of sand (plus chemicals) and results in large quantities of toxic and radioactive waste returning to the surface that needs to be dumped somewhere. It was not lorries that were coming to the small lanes of West Sussex, but tankers – and lots of them.
It’s little wonder that the residents were so opposed. The Guardian reported that a survey of the village found that 82% of those questioned were opposed to fracking. In the end the villagers and campaigners managed to delay activity to the point at which Cuadrilla’s planning application had run out of time.
The Battle of Balcombe is not just a history lesson. It’s a perfect example of the juxtaposition of people power versus the power of the state. Or in this case, it’s the battle of the lobbying power of big business and the demands of a community. It’s a problem for Conservatives who ideologically support small state – and it’s a real problem for the Conservatives if the battleground is in the Tory shires.
Truss and the “anti-growth coalition”
I listened to Truss’s speech on Wednesday with interest. And it was at the point she talked about the “anti-growth coalition” that I thought of those villagers in Balcombe in 2013.
“I will not allow the anti-growth coalition to hold us back. Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP … … the militant unions, the vested interests dressed up as think-tanks … the talking heads, the Brexit deniers and Extinction Rebellion and some of the people we had in the hall earlier.”
I thought of the Metcalfes and Kathryn McWhirter and Louisa Depley. Good, caring people who would not look out of place at a Tory fundraiser. The thing is, although I spent a lot of time down there, I didn’t know people’s politics, because it wasn’t relevant. What I do know is that these are people whose most ‘political’ activity, up until the arrival of Cuadrilla, was to go and vote.
Fracking changed that. As it has changed other communities up and down the land. And in doing so has championed a whole new and different type of politically active and engaged person.
Truss the disruptor-in-chief
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the new business secretary, thinks he can dismiss those opposed to fracking and is exploring ways to deregulate to speed up the process. He even joked he wouldn’t mind his back garden being fracked. His neighbours are less impressed, according to the Guardian.
“The anti-growth coalition think the people who stick themselves to trains, roads and buildings are heroes”, said Truss at the Conservative Party conference. No, they are just people like you and me who don’t actually want disruption or disruptors, and who don’t want the damaging environmental impact. And quite a lot of them will have voted Tory in the last election.
Truss has claimed she is the big disrupter, in fact the disrupter-in-chief.
One of the biggest ways to get people politically active and engaged is to come and disrupt their communities. Try and frack in our green and pleasant land (or in Rees-Mogg’s back garden) and you find out just what the so-called ‘anti-growth coalition’ really looks like. And you will find that disruption comes back to bite you.
