We have covered many campaigns during our fifteen years with the Salford Star but the one that was the most memorable for me was the anti-fracking protests at Barton Moss.
It started in June 2010 when a planning application was submitted to Salford City Council for the mining of coal bed methane on land owned by Peel Holdings. It wasn't until November 2013 though, when a group of environmental activists set up a camp to protest against IGas doing exploratory drilling at their hydraulic fracturing (fracking) well at the end of Barton Moss Road, that the campaign sparked into life.
The camp was located on the verge of Barton Moss Road, a public footpath, and twice a day, four days a week the 'Protectors' walked along the road in front of the trucks as they went in and out of the drilling site. The protest lasted until May 2014 when the company stopped drilling.
During this period the campaign at Barton Moss in Salford achieved much. It took on the local council, Greater Manchester Police, the drilling company IGas and one of the largest landowners in the North of England, Peel Holdings...and had massive victories against them all. For a period, it transformed the city of Salford galvanising the local activist community and politicising the wider community.
When the camp first set up no one knew what impact it would have. GMP Chief Superintendent Mark Roberts' perspective was that "the majority of people who are arriving on the site are not there to protest against fracking but are there to disrupt and intimidate the local community and to antagonise police…"
The goal of the campaign was to protest against the exploratory drilling taking place by IGas. Peel Holdings made numerous attempts to have the camp evicted during the campaign, changing their reasoning on each occasion. These actions seemed to be part of a wider attempt to use the legal system to block the protests. But despite their best efforts to have the camp removed, the protectors managed to keep it at the site until the drilling finished. At this point they removed the camp, and the site was cleaned up and left as it was found, leaving everyone with a real a sense of victory.
The campaign at Barton Moss wasn't just the tents occupying the side of the road, it was the walks in front of the convoys of trucks entering and leaving the drilling site. By simply exercising their right to walk along a public footpath, the protectors had an effective strategy for their protest that went on to be the catalyst for campaign's success. This simple action led to increasingly desperate attempts by Greater Manchester Police to criminalise the protectors through many unlawful arrests for a variety of dubious reasons which seemed to only serve the interests of IGas and Peel Holdings.
In many respects it was this that united many individuals and groups such as the Greater Manchester Association of Trade Councils. In a public letter to Tony Lloyd, Greater Manchester Crime and Police Commissioner, GMATUC slated GMP over 'horrendous' policing at Barton Moss and spoke of protests being "criminalised in an attempt to silence dissent". The letter goes on to say that "There are citizens in our county who…now find it impossible to trust any man or woman wearing the GMP badge".
Local activists set up the camp but people from all over the country soon arrived to swell its number because of their own fears for their environment. It was, however, the relationship between those staying at the camp and the wider community that was most significant in the campaign being able to grow.
Having a physical space where people could meet, learn, organise and communicate gave the campaign a focal point, and there were always 20-30 people staying there. This meant that those who couldn't stay or be there every day could engage in the protest when they were able to. It was quite clear that the community needed the camp for this protest to succeed. It acted like a crutch, enabling their protest to be more effective. And this could be seen by the way people supported the camp with donations of food, water, clothing, medicine and skills, creating a large community of activists.
The sophistication of the campaign was through its legal understanding, it's organising and its use of digital communications. Live streaming platforms like Bambuser perhaps proved most useful as it enabled people to broadcast video from their mobile devices. Whilst activists have filmed protests to record police behaviour for years, the benefit of Bambuser was that the footage wasn't recorded on the device. The advantage of this was that whilst phones can be confiscated as evidence for months until a case gets to court, by using Bambuser the footage is stored online and can be accessed by anyone straight away. GMP tried to counter this by targeting people live streaming, confronting them and trying to switch off the device whilst they questioned them.
The many hours of footage recorded in this way was used by solicitors representing the protectors. The relationship between the firms such as Lizars and the campaign at Barton Moss proved fruitful, with many arrests being proven unlawful on the back of this type of evidence.
Those moments in front of the trucks at Barton Moss made everyone feel like another world was possible. A campaign where people from all walks of life found themselves because of their fear for what fracking might do to their environment; yet in this moment peaceful protesters were treated as a danger to society. This was like a red rag to a bull for Salfordians and soon many flocked to Barton Moss in support. And, so, what started as a campaign about fracking soon became a campaign that was also about the role of the police.
The Barton Moss campaign was one of the most effective in our fifteen years of doing the Salford Star. Salford had never seen anything quite like it; its creativity, its innovative use of digital media and its legal savvy. What was inspiring though was the way the community came together, people from all areas of Salford saw what was happening, saw the injustice in how it was being policed, turned up, stood up to the establishment, and won!
Footnote from the editor: The Barton Moss Shame of Salford City Council
During the whole time at Barton Moss, not one single councillor from the ruling Labour Party or its City Mayor turned up either to show support or just to see what was happening, despite pleas from Salford unions and activists.
It later transpired that Salford Council was actually colluding with IGas, Greater Manchester Police, Peel Holdings and other organisations during the anti-fracking protests at Barton Moss – sharing intelligence, communications and branding in a 'Memorandum of Understanding'...
"Instead of simply clarifying accountability for issues like site safety or contingency planning, what it reveals is that far from balancing equally the needs of both IGas and its local opponents, one side…had insider access to Gold and Silver senior police command meetings, daily briefings or video conferences with GMP's Silver Commander and shared police and local council information and intelligence. And the protesters didn't" wrote police watchdog Netpol. For full details see the article – click here
Words and photos by Steven Speed
See also Steven Speed's documentation of the protest at www.thebattleofbartonmoss.com
For more details see these previous Salford Star articles or just put 'Barton Moss' into the Salford Star search engine at the top of the website front page
SALFORD COUNCIL VOTES FOR MINING IN THE GREEN BELT (2010)
STORIES FROM BARTON MOSS (2014)
FIVE RUBBISH ARRESTS AT BARTON MOSS ANTI-FRACKING PROTESTS (2015)
SALFORD SLOW WALKING ANTI-FRACKING PROTESTS RULED LEGITIMATE (2016)
UNITED NATIONS FINDS GMP PRACTICES AT BARTON MOSS ANTI FRACKING PROTESTS 'SHAMEFUL' AND 'UNACCEPTABLE' (2017)
For a full background on the closure of the Salford Star see related articles...
Salford Star To Close After 15 Years – click here
A Star Is Born – click here
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Salford Stars – Part 1 – click here
Salford Stars Part 2 – click here
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Eight Happenings That Encapsulate Salford: Part 2 – click here
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