18 September 2017
The Green Party’s co-leaders will join a protest outside Cuadrilla’s fracking site on Preston New Road in Lancashire today.
Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley will speak to protesters at 1.30pm [1].
The visit follows the arrests of Tina Rothery, Green Party life member and ‘anti-fracking nana’, at the fracking site on September 2 [2] and three other Green Party members who locked themselves together outside the site’s entrance on August 30 [3].
Lucas said:
“I’m joining the protests on Monday because it’s abundantly clear that fracking is a dirty, destructive industry that will wreck the UK’s climate ambitions and leave us dependent on fossil fuels for years to come. We know that the price of renewables is dropping fast, and it’s high time that the Government stop their reckless dash for gas and focus on making Britain into a world leader in modern, clean energy from the sun, wind and sea.”
Bartley said:
“It’s an honour to join activists on the front line of the fight against fracking on Monday. Fracking is dirty, dangerous and expensive. It contaminates local air, water and soil and the community in Lancashire said they didn’t want it. Instead of overriding their wishes and destroying our climate commitments in the process by drilling for gas we should be investing in renewable energy for the future.”
Notes:
- Other speakers include Simon Pickering, Green Party councillor and Ecotricity ecologist, and Stephen Hall, Greater Manchester Association of Trades Unions Councils president and Unite the Union Greater Manchester Area Activists Committee chairperson. The fracking site is at Preston New Road, PR4 3PH.
- https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2017/09/02/green-party-responds-to-arrest-of-life-member-and-activist-tina-rothery/
- https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2017/08/31/green-party-women-take-direction-action-against-fracking-in-lancashire/
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