Just Stop Oil supporters caused 'disorder' at a council meeting as they protested over Kingsbury oil terminal injunction.They forced a North Warwickshire Borough Council meeting to a halt and the police had to be called in.
Mitch Rose and Dr Tom Barber, who both broke the council injunction last year at Kingsbury, started shouting during the meeting about the Kingsbury injunction. It was brought into force following a number of incidents at the oil terminal.
Now the council has applied to the High Court to finalise the injunction - something the protesters claim is a 'waste of council tax payers money'. Mitch, who spent eight days in prison with an additional suspended sentence for her part in protests at the oil terminal, and Dr Barber reportedly stood up in the meeting with with signs that read 'Injunction Injustice” and £137, 000 local taxes wasted."
Both then protested about the council spend on the injunction with Mitch saying:"You are using thousands of pounds of your constituents’ money to do the oil companies’ dirty work for them. Does that sit ok with your constituents?”
"Put the money instead into public transport. Please don’t send ordinary mums and grandmas like me to prison any more.” It was the second protest held by Just Stop Oil after a demonstration outside the council offices last week.
'They have caused us to spend a considerable amount of money'
A North Warwickshire Borough Council spokesperson said that the meeting had to be briefly adjourned on Wednesday evening in order to deal with the 'disorder'. They added that the issue of the injunction was not on the agenda to be discussed, having been fully considered by the Council’s Executive Board the week before.
The spokesman claimed that while some of the protests at the oil terminal had been peaceful, some of the other actions was 'far more dangerous', including breaking into the terminal, climbing onto storage tanks, using mobile phones (a potential source of ignition) and interfering with safety equipment within the terminal.
Councillor David Wright, Leader of North Warwickshire Borough Council, said on Thursday: "The risk posed from some of the more extreme elements of the protest simply could not be ignored by the council. Our action has no bearing on steps we are taking to reasonably manage our emissions nor on any national debates about the balance to be struck between protests and the rule of law.
"8,000 residents live in the immediate vicinity of the terminal, together with a number of sensitive environmental assets including the catchment area of the River Tame, 8 Sites of Special Scientific Interest, 7 Local Nature Reserves and 27 non-statutory sites of local environmental interest. As a result, therefore, there would be a very severe cost to people and the environment if the risks were not managed.
"Councillors are aware of the action being taken and given that it is the protesters that have caused us have to spend a considerable amount of money, it is galling that they are accusing us of being the reason this money has been spent. No council would want to have to take this action but the issues of public and environmental safety are taken very seriously by North Warwickshire Borough council.
"Our Chief Executive met with the protesters last week in order to discuss this matter with them and we have space on our agenda for the public to ask questions. The action last night therefore to disrupt the meeting of democratically elected councillors is not justified and I am grateful for the swift actions of Warwickshire Police in keeping the disruption last night to a minimum."
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