Activists have targeted efforts to replace most of the Southampton to London Underground by tampering with equipment and “attacking” it with angle wheels, a judge has said. A protester, named in a court document as Scott Breen, dug in next to the M25 at Runnymede in Surrey in an attempt to disrupt the installation of the replacement pipe, a court heard. The Southampton-London pipeline project, which received development permission in October 2020, aims to replace 90km of pipeline between Boorley Green in Hampshire and Esso’s west London storage terminal at Hounslow, near Heathrow Airport. Replacing the pipeline, originally built in 1972, will help keep 100 tankers a day off the road, Esso claims. It is expected to be completed next year. Esso Petroleum Company Limited, which is owned by ExxonMobil, was granted an interim injunction against Breen and “unknown persons” following a hearing before Mr Justice Eyre at the Crown Court in London on Monday. Timothy Morshead QC, representing Esso, said in written submissions that he sought the order urgently to prevent people from “conspiring to injure” its business “by unlawful means”. “The unlawful means in question consist in the actual and threatened trespasses on goods and also on land which [Esso] has experienced – and which continues to be threatened against the pipeline project,” Morshead said. “The activities carried out by some protesters go far beyond lawful and peaceful protests and raise serious health and safety concerns.” Morshead said the company sought an order that would only apply to acts “with the intention of preventing or obstructing the construction of the Southampton to London pipeline project”. The barrister said Breen, “a known tunneller”, had dug on land owned by Runnymede Borough Council in a “sensitive” position near the motorway which Esso contractors needed to access. “He’s been bragging about it on social media,” Morshead said. Eyre said in his ruling that “there was material suggesting an agreement between certain persons to stop construction of the pipeline, to do so by entering private land and/or land enclosed for the purposes of the construction of the pipeline. conduit”. He said the purpose of this was to “harm” Esso by “preventing the construction of the pipeline it is authorized to build” and said there were “threats of further disruption” posted online. The judge noted that the protest action came against a backdrop of “strong convictions and concerns about the effects of air travel” and said he considered there to be a “legitimate public interest in climate change”. Eyre concluded that an injunction was “proportionate and necessary to secure this [Esso] is allowed to carry out its legal activities”. He set September 7 as the date for a court review of the order, which has geographic limits. The judge said he was “almost persuaded” to order an injunction against Breen, who was not represented in court. He noted that on social media Breen had accepted that he had been asked to leave his pit, which he dug in Chertsey, by Esso and the council, but had not.
