Anti-fracking demonstrators’ rights of protest and expression does not override the property rights of landowners, a court has been told.
Katharine Holland QC, acting for major landholder Peel, which wants to evict protesters from its land at Barton Moss in Salford, Greater Manchester, said this would not amount to stopping their lawful right to protest.
Peel has given energy firm IGas permission to carrying out exploratory drilling on the land to see if gas extraction by fracking can be done there.
Since November anti-fracking groups have gathered in protest, setting up an encampment of tents and old caravans and disrupting work at the site, with police making a series of arrests for public order offences.
About 60 protesters have repeatedly sat or laid in the road, stopping lorries going to and from the site.
They are claiming that if Peel is granted a possession order for the land and they are evicted, this will breach their rights under Article 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, covering freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.
Peel’s nine-strong legal team sat in a row behind Miss Holland as she set out its case to Judge Mark Pelling at the High Court in Manchester.
Behind them listening to the case sat around 15 protesters, who have lived by camp fire for months, with the smell of smoke heavy in the courtroom.
Miss Holland cited case law and rulings from previous hearings, including Occupy London’s encampment at St Paul’s Cathedral.
She said there was no unlimited or automatic right in law to enter private or public property and no unqualified right to protest.
She added that landlords had their own rights as property owners and evicting the demonstrators did not amount to a blanket ban on the right to protest.
Miss Holland said it would be “fanciful” to suggest evicting trespassers would be stopping their right to demonstrate and express themselves.
“But the point is, anyone can exercise their Article 10 rights, in various ways – there’s press, there’s media, there is all sorts of ways of enjoying freedom of expression,” Miss Holland said.
“It is not the case it can only be expressed by trespassing and restricting the owner’s Article 1 property rights.
“They have expressed their rights, so clearly it is not the case they are denied their freedom of expression if they have to leave the land.”
Lindsay Johnson, for the protesters, said the strip of land in question – the grass verge between a farmer’s field and the side of the road – was where the protesters lived.
As it is their “home”, it is also protected under human rights laws, he said.
“It’s where they make their home, it’s where they sleep and eat,” he said.
“The defendants are in occupation of an unused piece of land. It’s just a strip of land at the side of the road. There is no future proposed use for that land.”
Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is a method to extract shale gas from rocks using water and chemicals under high pressure.
While the Government says it is a new energy source with potential to create jobs and wealth, opponents say it will damage the environment.
Police say patrolling the site has cost taxpayers at least £700,000.
Judge Pelling adjourned the case until this morning.
