Oil protester has spent 24 days living in tunnel and poos in bucket
A climate change protester has spent 24 days living in a tunnel that he has dug close to the M25 in Chertsey in order to prevent the construction of an oil pipeline. Scott Breen, 48, who goes by the name Digger, says his presence is blocking further work on a new pipeline being built by ExxonMobil to transport aviation fuel from Southampton to Heathrow. The protest began on August 1 when Digger and his supporters dug the hole in a position designed to block machines from boring a path under the motorway to lay the new pipeline.
On August 16 a High Court injunction was issued that ordered him to leave within 72 hours, but he has refused to comply and the court will consider the injunction again at a hearing on September 7. “I’m surrounded by a minimum of four security guards at all times,” he told SurreyLive. “Four times a day they come and read the injunction to me, but I’ve got a tannoy that I use to just play police sirens at them so I have no idea what they’re saying.” READ MORE: Surrey armed police sent to oil pipeline near M25 after protester locks himself in tunnel
Afraid that the guards might grab him if he strayed too far from the tunnel, he stayed in it permanently for the first 16 days of his protest. He says that he then learned that their remit was simply to check on his welfare and gather evidence, rather than to forcibly remove him, so he was able to emerge and has now built a tower above the hole using rope and wooden pallets provided by supporters. He now has a mattress set up in the roof section of the tower and is relatively confident that no one will try to forcibly remove him as he sleeps.
He said: “When we were discovered digging the hole it was only eight feet deep with just enough room to lie down at the bottom. I was stuck like that for a few days but now I’ve been able to build around it a bit and there’s a perimeter fence, that gave me a bit of security so I’ve been able to excavate it and make it more comfortable. I sleep at the top of the tower now, and from there I can see everything that’s going on.”
Digger refused to reveal who provides him with food and water because he is concerned that the terms of the injunction are such that anyone found to be assisting him could also be in legal trouble. He said he initially went into the tunnel with about five days’ worth of food, and the perimeter fence is only about 20 feet from the hole so people could throw packages and other supplies to him. He now has six weeks’ worth of food and about a month’s worth of electricity via battery packs.
As for going to the toilet, his means are quite basic. He said: “I have a bucket, so I put a bag in that and then sit on that and crap in the bucket, then tie it up and double wrap it. I put it in a bio waste bag, and security puts it in a bio waste bin.”
Scott Breen, known as Digger, in his makeshift tunnel by the M25 in Chertsey (Image: Wolf)
Digger is not fighting alone.
His main support comes from a man known as Wolf, who stays permanently at the Chertsey site and also spoke to SurreyLive. “I’m here 24 hours a day, staying about two or three minutes away in a tent,” he said. “I support Digger by watching out for his welfare and being a legal observer. I studied protest law for eight years so I know most of the laws around what he can and cannot do, and what he’s entitled to. He hasn’t been arrested yet, so he’s still entitled to food and water.”
Digger said his demands are that the pipeline is scrapped and that Heathrow Airport abandon plans for a third runway. In the meantime, he will stay in place until the authorities send a team to dig him out, which he anticipates will take at least another three weeks. He has plenty of experience of this kind of action, having spent the last 10 years campaigning full time.
He previously spent 20 days in the tunnel that protesters built outside Euston station to protest the new HS2 rail link, and he has participated in various anti-fracking campaigns. These previous actions have meant that he now has a criminal record, but he insists he will keep on taking action. “I’ve always been fighting the oil industry,” he said. “There needs to be an immediate transition into renewable energy.” In a statement issued at the time when the protest began, ExxonMobil project executive Tim Sunderland said the existing pipeline had been in use for decades and needed replacement. “The project is replacing an existing aviation fuel pipeline that has been in place since 1972.,” he said. “It currently carries the equivalent of 100 road tankers of fuel every day.
Without the replacement pipeline, the fuel would need to be transported by truck on local roads.”
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