Just Stop Oil: Valero Energy granted injunction restricting protests

An oil firm has been granted a High Court injunction aimed at restricting environmental protesters from targeting its fuel processing sites.

Valero Energy has secured the order against several environmental groups and "persons unknown".

It bans anyone from damaging the land at its sites or "affixing themselves to any other person or object".

The firm's Warwickshire terminal has been the site of recent protests, with 32 arrests made over the weekend.

Activists from the group Just Stop Oil have tried to obstruct access to Valero's Kingsbury oil terminal since a series of nationwide protests started on 1 April.

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Valero also operates a refinery in Pembrokeshire, south Wales, and five other fuel terminals across the UK.

Campaigners, including some from Extinction Rebellion, have carried out protests at other sites including in Birmingham, London, Southampton and Hemel Hempstead.

Following a hearing on Monday, Mr Justice Bennathan made the injunction in terms which ban people from damaging any part of the land at the firm's sites or access roads, from building any structure and from tunnelling under roads or occupying existing tunnels.

The order, the details of which were made public on Wednesday, also prohibits abandoning vehicles or other items on parts of Valero's sites' access roads.

But the judge refused to widen the injunction to include blocking, endangering, slowing down, preventing, or obstructing the free passage of traffic on the access roads, and refusing to leave the roads when asked by police.

In his ruling Mr Justice Bennathan said: "The order I made forbids various acts of trespass, including the blocking of gates on Valero's premises, and forbids acts of obstructing certain specified roadways, including public highways, in various semi-permanent ways. It does so for all seven sites."

He said he was satisfied Valero would have a strong basis for action over trespass or private and public nuisance on the basis of protests which had already taken place but that due to the sums involved in the oil industry, and the "impracticality of obtaining damages on that scale from a diverse group of protesters", damages would not be an adequate remedy.

The judge added that trespassing on the sites could lead to "highly dangerous outcomes" given the flammable nature of the materials on site and that obstruction of roads could cause serious damage for critical infrastructure, as "emergency services, hospitals and other key parts of society depend on oil based fuels".

The injunction will be reconsidered at a hearing next January to determine if it is still necessary.

Similar injunctions were put in place to stop protests by the group Insulate Britain after its activists blocked parts of the M25 last year.