Frack Free Solent news.

Greening Petersfield presents a showing of GASLAND 7.30pm Thursday 18th September, Winton House Centre, 18 High Street, Petersfield GU32 1QA – Map
£4 (£2 concessions) tickets on the door

Film in brief:
Fracking has unlocked a “Saudia Arabia of natural gas” just beneath us. But is fracking safe? When filmmaker Josh Fox is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination. A recently drilled nearby Pennsylvania town reports that residents are able to light their drinking water on fire. This is just one of the many absurd and astonishing revelations of a new country called GASLAND. Part verite travelogue, part expose, part mystery, part bluegrass banjo meltdown, part showdown.

London Climate March
A national march has been organised in London on Sunday 21st September 12.30 – 2.30pm to coincide with the upcoming climate talks in New York. Meet at 12:30pm at: Temple Place, WC2R 3BD – Map

March ends at Westminster with a huge group photo outside Parliament. More information

Friends of the Earth Frack Down Day
FoE is planning a national anti-fracking action day on Saturday 11th October. One strand of this work is the idea of putting Anti Fracking stickers on wheelie bins. Tim has a number of stickers on order. If anyone thinks their street / village might make a splash with wheelie bins stickered-up on either 11th or your collection day in the week following, please email him

FoE are still developing campaign ideas – you can contribute here:

March in Chichester

If you can’t make it to the London Climate March this Sunday 21^st September, Transition Chichester are organising a local Climate March through the streets of Chichester from 12pm to 1pm to petition the Mayor, District and County Councils.

“In Chichester we plan to march with a petition to the Assembly Rooms in North Street (5 mins) to deliver our petition to the Mayor, where we will invite him to join us and march on to the District Council Offices (10 mins) to hand over the petition to the Leader of the District Council and we will invite her to join us and the Mayor to march on to the County Council Offices in West Street where we hope to deliver the petition to the Leader of the County Council and our MP. End time approx. 1pm”

For more info Contact Transition Chichester or phone 01243 539090

Funtington Public Info Meeting 

Frack Free Solent are helping organise an information meeting about fracking, Friday 24 October at 7.30pm in Funtington Community Village Hall, Southbrook Rd, West Ashling, PO18 8DR. Map

More details to follow.

Contact Frack Free Solent or visit our website

Tolpuddle 2014.

Photo by Wheelz.

We take a moment to salute our illustrious comrade John Flower (see below 4th July) who passed away in June, we left a small memorial to him at the annual International Brigades ceremony and  antifascists from Wessex, Portsmouth and Southampton  attended his funeral.

But life is for the living and we had another cracking weekend! We were delighted to welcome four comrades from CNT-AIT Caen this year.

Minor drama on Saturday when some prat tried to trash the stall after a specious argument about royalties. His objection was to our use of the ubiquitous John Harris photograph of Lesley Boulton at Orgreave, on this the 30th anniversary of the Miners’ Strike, which could be seen adorning T shirts all over the site. He was safely and efficiently restrained by one of the older members of our group, who also happens to be a photojournalist. We have several NUJ members in the collective who questioned him about his motives.  All became clear when we visited his stall which carried similar images at four quid a pop! It turned out he was just some bourgeois flogging lefty posters for the benefit of no one but himself, and he was upset that we were giving away something he was trying to sell.

The unseemly fracas didn’t do us any harm as people queued up to tell us – and him, what a prick he was, and our now slightly disheveled literature flew off the stall. He approached the organisers (not us) to offer an apology, and we replied that since he cares so much about money, he could make amends by sticking some in our donations jar, this he failed to do.

The stuff we carry on the stall is only there  because we want people to read it; we produce it ourselves and we only take donations for it to cover our costs so we can do it again next year. The cash we take for Freedom goes to Freedom. Revenge was foregone as we were reluctant to relinquish the moral high ground we occupied, but if you’re doing a class-based event keep an eye out for this arsehole who just might decide to barge in and fuck shit up. Stocky bloke with white hair, gold-rimmed glasses and beige trousers. This is from his web site, ‘Past Pixels’ click on it to go there:

Numbers on the march down a bit on last year but it was good to welcome some new faces.

Frack Free Solent public information meetings.

The government has rushed to let fracking licences all over southern England. Fracking is a very different process to conventional oil extraction requiring major industrial complexes at every wellhead. Typically well-heads are spaced at 1 mile intervals. These meetings are your chance to discuss the implications and get better informed.

STOCKBRIDGE (between Winchester & Andover) on Tuesday 8 July at 7.30pm Stockbridge Town Hall, High St, Stockbridge SO20 6HE  Map

• Short film describing fracking
• Marcus Adams from Frack Free Fernhurst
• Becky Martin from Salisbury Against Fracking
• Speaker from Hampshire Renewable Energy Collective
• Question and answer session

IGas Energy, already responsible for a conventional oil well near Stockbridge, holds three exploration and development licences covering large areas between Stockbridge and Andover and Stockbridge and Winchester. In the next few years the Test Valley could become part of the new UK “Gas Lands” with the countryside becoming industrialised.

This meeting is your chance to discuss the implications and get informed so you are ready in the event that planning applications start to be made in this area.

PETERSFIELD on Saturday 12 July at 10.00am St Peter’s Parish Hall, St Peter’s Rd, Petersfield GU32 3HX  Map

• Short film describing fracking
• Tim Dawes from Frack Free Solent
• Brenda Pollock from Friends of the Earth
• Peter McDowell, a geologist
• Question and answer session

Celtique Energy has been given a large concession that includes Petersfield, Liphook and Midhurst and is presently applying for planning permission for a well-head at Fernhurst.

Contact Frack Free Solent or visit our website