From a Surrey oil well to the supreme court: how an activist changed UK climate law

Sarah Finch’s fight against drilling led to a landmark ruling on fossil fuel emissions – and a leading environmental prizeIt started with a notice in the local newspaper and ended with winning one of the world’s most prestigious environmental prizes. In 2010, Sarah Finch was flicking through the local planning notices when one caught her eye: a proposal to drill for oil at Horse Hill in Surrey, just outside Crawley, over the border in West Sussex, 6 miles (10km) from her home.Surrey is not the kind of place one expects to find the oil industry. It’s a county of little villages, farms, woods and commuter railway stations. Its semi-rural landscape stretches off towards the horizon in a typically English green patchwork. It is difficult to envision it littered with nodding donkey pumpjacks and gas flares.