A CAMP set up to block the creation of an opencast coalmine has been moved ten metres to comply with a court order.

Earlier this week, protesters were ordered to vacate land earmarked for four years of excavation work at Dipton, near Stanley, in County Durham.

On Thursday, ahead of the 4pm deadline, the group moved off the Bradley site, and on the verge by the A692, blocking the access gate to the land.

On Friday morning, passing motorists regularly made their thoughts known about the controversial development, and the counter-protest.

Many tooted jaunty tunes of support on their car horns, but some also took time to wind down their windows and shout abuse at the 15 strong group.

Protestor Scarlet Hall, from Hartlepool, said: “It is just on the other side of the fence. They need to widen the road so now we are directly in the way of where they need to be to carry out their work.”

Plans for an opencast coalmine in the area have been lodged and challenged for about three decades, but it is this specific plan, over the last ten years, that has coming closest to going ahead, despite a passionate campaign by local people to block it.

An application by UK Coal was rejected, and two public inquiries and a High Court case later, the site has planning permission and a new developer looking to carry out the scheme.

The protesters have said they believe work has to be started by early June and have announced their intention to frustrate the process.

Who owns the land they are currently camped on is unclear.

It is thought to be the local authority, but no-one from Durham County Council was available for comment.

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Lewis Stokes, community relations manager at The Banks Group, said: “Given the emphasis placed by the trespassers on the legal right they believed they had to be on this private land, it is only right that, if they have indeed come entirely off it as required by the legal ruling, that they have chosen to do so.”

The new camp, which has two makeshift living and sleeping areas, several tents, a sheltered cooking area, and an open air communal area, is surrounded by signs and messages.

The gate to the land has been barricaded, and in a tree nearby, next to a treehouse made of pallets, a wheelchair has been hoisted – the significance of this remains unclear.

The protestors are made up of young men and women, who appear to be in their 20s, and are from all over the country, and beyond.

People who live in the area are visiting the site and it is their donations of food parcels which are keeping the group going.

Sam Googin, 23, from Hexham, said: “There is a lot of local support.

“People have been tooting a lot. Some of it is negative, but it is hard to say. A thumbs up, and two fingers are pretty similar.”