Today I received a 650-signature petition calling for an end to the presence of anti-fracking protest camps in the area. The petition calls on the relevant authorities to evict the protest camps outside the Third Energy well site near the village of Kirby Misperton, and crucially, to ensure that no new camps are established in the area in future.
I do feel sympathy for the views expressed in the petition as it comes after many local people say they've had enough of the disruption caused by national protestors and the visual blight of the camps. Of course, people are entitled to protest but there is a limit and residents should be allowed to go about their daily lives. Protestors cross the line when they act illegally such as jumping on moving vehicles, or by intimidating people and stopping them from going to work, taking their children to school or attending doctor’s appointments.
The organisers of the petition, which anti-fracking activists twice succeeded in having removed from online petition sites, are worried that the closure of the larger protest camp on land just off Kirby Misperton Road is no guarantee that protestors won't return. Certainly the protesters have vowed to return and they want measures to be put in place to prevent a repeat of the protests that have gone on in recent months.
Nick Hardman, one of the petition organisers told me: "Just because the protestors are packing up to leave, it doesn't mean they won't be back. We've already seen that they're only too willing to trespass on land that doesn't belong to them and to engage in forms of protest that only serve to cause disruption to local residents. Our voices deserve to be heard. Local officials need to recognise the intolerable disruption, stress and community division these camps and their residents unfairly place on local residents and do more to rid them from the area and to stop a reoccurrence."