Monthly Archives: October 2020

Press release from the Weald Action Group

Sarah Finch speaks to XR activists at Horse Hill in September 2020

The environmental organisation Friends of the Earth and the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government have been granted permission to participate in a local campaigners’ legal challenge over oil production at Horse Hill, near Gatwick in Surrey.

Campaigner Sarah Finch is bringing a Judicial Review of Surrey County Council’s decision to grant an onshore oil company planning permission for four new oil wells and 20 years of oil production. Friends of the Earth had applied to make a legal intervention to support the challenge; the Secretary of State applied to be joined in order to oppose the challenge.

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Faith at the Gate at Horse Hill on Sunday 1 November will remember species eradicated by, or in danger of extinction because of, extractive industries.

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Press release from the Weald Action Group

UK Government energy policy and local planning rules on onshore oil developments need to change, say campaigners.

The Weald Action Group has published a briefing Why we don’t need more onshore oil in the UK, which refutes claims made by the onshore oil industry that their developments are needed to maintain energy security, that UK oil has a lower carbon footprint than imported oil, that they provide local jobs and that they are needed for plastic production.

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Press release from A Voice for Leith Hill

Campaigners at Leith Hill

Campaigners are celebrating as a cohort of onshore oil firms have been forced to walk away from the controversial proposed oil drilling site at Leith Hill in Surrey.

The consortium of UK Oil & Gas Plc (UKOG), Angus Energy and Egdon Resources Ltd has decided to relinquish the licence after concluding that “the required long-reach/shallow target-depth wells are neither technically viable or economically feasible”.  

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Two fathers in their 50s have occupied a drill rig at the Horse Hill site, in protest at the plans to scale up oil production at the site.

According to a press release from Extinction Rebellion, the two men entered the site in the early hours of this morning (10 October), using an access ladder to climb the rig to a platform approximately 15 metres above the ground. They have hung a banner from the rig saying “No More Oil” and are refusing to come down from the platform.

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