Rathlin Energy UK have today thanked Humberside Police and the bailiffs for the professional manner in which the orders of the High Court were carried out this Saturday in Walkington.
A statement released by the company read;
“We are pleased to have been able to regain possession of our site at Crawberry Hill. We are grateful to the officers of the court and Humberside Police for the highly professional manner in which the orders of the High Court were carried out, and we are especially relieved that there were no injuries in the course of the process.”
“Rathlin Energy (UK) Limited never wanted to have to go to law to recover the site, but there was no alternative. We have a duty of care to the local community, and to the environment, to maintain the site and to protect the surrounding countryside. Our uninvited visitors have neither the qualifications, equipment nor the experience needed for this specialist task.”
“We also have important work to do in relation to the possible conventional oil and gas targets which were identified when we drilled the well at Crawberry Hill last year. None of this work will involve fracking.”
“Rathlin Energy (UK) Limited has never had issue with the rights of peaceful, legal protest which we all enjoy in this country. For over three months now, however, Rathlin Energy (UK) Limited has been the target of an unrelenting stream of misinformation, unfounded allegations about our objectives, scare-mongering and defamatory reputational damage.”
“We have always been clear that fracking has no part in our work or our plans – at Crawberry Hill our planning consent expressly prohibits it – but the protesters camped at our sites, and other vociferous individuals (who know quite well that our work does not involve fracking), continue to stage these protests, in the wrong place and at the wrong targets.”
“Meanwhile our staff and our contractors have been subjected, daily, to unacceptable levels of obstruction, intimidation and bullying – as have the officers of Humberside Police who have had to assist us going about our legal business.”
“We hope that now, with possession of the Crawberry Hill site regained, we will be able to get back to work. If we have one message to the local community and to the protesters, it is that Rathlin Energy (UK) Limited is not going away.”
“We have been working here in East Yorkshire, in close relation with our local communities, for over three years. We have already invested very heavily here, and will go on doing so, in the hope of discovering commercial quantities of gas and/or oil in conventional rock formations.
“If successful, these could make an important contribution, both to the regional economy and to the energy supplies this country is going to need in coming years.”
“Everything we do is very strictly regulated and supervised; every step we take has been approved in advance by all the relevant authorities, including our planning authority, East Riding of Yorkshire Council.”
“We work to the highest standards of the international oil and gas industry. And we will do everything possible to minimise the disruption caused to our local communities whom we will keep fully informed of all our plans and activities.”
One man has already come out and spoken and described Saturday’s Eviction as nothing more than a Corporate Agenda.
If anybody seriously believes a word of what Rathlin has just said about their plans or that the Police have behaved ‘professionally’ given the huge number of acquittals and wrongful arrests, I would suggest they open their eyes and ears during the next few months and then test their observations against this piece of foul falsehood.
At last a Bussiness can go about its lawful actions. Protest is a valuable right in our society. But must be conducted within the Law. Protest by all means, it is your right, but remember this Bussiness has it’s rights as well.
Is this the same Val Mager who was offered a caution when she and her husband were arrested in May but insisted that Humberside Police charge her and her meditating husband? Is this the same Val Mager whose husband later claimed that the arrests were a waste of public money having ignored police requests to move out or the way and later insisting on their day in court? Is this the same Val Mager who is married to a man who reached the dizzy heights of director of education at ERYC before taking a figure close to £500k through his local government pension fund? Is this the same Val Mager whose husband says that the protestors have struggled because they have run out of funds…despite her husband sitting on a small fortune from his publicly funded local government pension fund? Things are never quite what they seem Mr and Mrs Mager…are they? You speak of falsehoods Val Mager…people who know you and your husband, they know the truth.
Rat-lin have consistently broken their planning agreement, the council apparently complicit in supporting the beginning of the end for our land, in that they have taken no notice of the constant reports from locals of unauthorised hedge removal, unauthorised lorry convoys, drilling beyond their agreed target. The environment agency have taken no notice of leaking tanks and well pads. It would seem that the EA are facilitating this crime also in their lack of action. Rat-lin have completely deceived the local community in their closed public liaison meeting and changed the meaning of what a frack is. Indeed, the many thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals will still pass through a relatively flimsy concrete casing through the aquifer that supplies the water to the entire county. If you think this is acceptable then I would like to see you drink this liquid and tell me in a year if you are still alive.
And is the rusty tank leaking liquid all over the neighbouring field up at Crawberry Hill what passes for, “equipment [and] experience needed for this specialist task”?
See that, and the growing catalogue of incompetence in this cowboy operation:
http://www.frackfreeeastyorkshire.com/incidents
Well rat-lin looks like the war just stepped up a notch. See ya on the battle field.
Well done the Police and and high court, protesting is fine but stopping people doing lawful business is not !! and most of the protesters are not local and can get very aggressive and intimidating !!