A retired nurse who serves tea and cake to anti-fracking protesters has been ordered to remove her refreshments van, three months after her run in with police made headlines.

Jackie Brooks, 79, and her husband, Jim, have been providing hot drinks and biscuits at the fracking site in the village of Kirby Misperton, North Yorkshire, since September.

The self-styled “anti-fracking tea lady” became a star when pictures of her cake stall surrounded by a dozen police officers were seen around the world in October.

Brooks said she had been told by North Yorkshire county council to move her van from near the gates of the fracking site, where protesters have been camped for nearly a year, to another spot further away.

She said the new location was dangerous as it would force her customers into the road and was directly outside a bungalow, the owner of which objected to the move on privacy grounds.

An anti-fracking march in Kirby Misperton, where tests of the procedure are expected to begin in the new year. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

“It’s pettiness, for one thing, and a lack of common sense. I think they’ve locked common sense away in the archives,” Brooks said.

“We’re not blocking anything at all and the people are safer here because we’re not blocking the road. Nobody from the council has actually come and told me that I’ve got to move and as far as I’m concerned, I’m not going to move.”

Brooks said she had written to the council objecting to the move and was willing to stand her ground if they tried to tow her van away. Protesters climbed on top of the modified catering vehicle earlier this month when a low-loader trailer was thought to be “eyeing it up to take it away”, she said.

“If they want to try that again, well that’s up to them. I don’t think they’ll be very popular. They’ve had other protest letters, not just from me, and we all got the same stock answer: they still want us to move,” she said.



“The police have no objection – in fact, I think they feel now that we’re an asset because we help keep tempers down. It can get heated. It’s an old caravan that was modified to be a catering van. It’s not a sleeper. Tea, coffee, hot chocolate, cakes, biscuits, soup, you name it – we even offer Bonios [dog biscuits] for the anti-fracking dogs.”

The gas exploration company Third Energy expects to begin test fracking at the site in the new year – the first such drilling in England since 2011, when minor earthquakes occurred in Lancashire after tests near Blackpool.

Anti-fracking campaigners have vowed to step up their efforts to block any fracking, in a long-running dispute that has resulted in scores of arrests.

A comment has been sought from North Yorkshire county council.