Today’s front cover of The Independent runs with news that the British Airports Authority (BAA) has taken legal steps that would allow police to arrest members of 15 environmental groups – including the National Trust, the Woodland Trust and Friends of the Earth – to stop them from taking part in demonstrations against airport expansion.

This comes just days after Global Cool reported that one of the environmental groups affected, Camp for Climate Action, is set to take over the airport in a sit-in style protest against increasing passenger numbers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pressure group announced yesterday that it was “stunned” by the news.

“It seems that having totally lost the argument on climate change they are resorting to bullying tactics,” said Camp for Climate Action’s Joss Garman, who was one of four protest leaders served with an injunction on Monday.

If BAA is successful, anyone failing to give 24 hours’ notice of a protest could be arrested for travelling on sections of the motorway, using the Piccadilly line on the London Underground or catching the Heathrow Express at Paddington.

Protesters would nevertheless be allowed to gather at three specially assigned protest points on the peripheries of the airport, as long as they provided names of those involved and notice in advance.

BAA insisted the measures were being taken to protect the travelling public from disruption during the summer holidays. But environmental groups as well as civil liberties campaigners have denounced the move as unenforceable.

“The dangerous and undemocratic trend of large corporations seeking to trample the legal right to peaceful protest should be taken very seriously by the courts,” said the civil liberties group Liberty.

Click here for Camp for Climate Action website