Gatwick Airport has secured a court order banning environmental activists over fears of an imminent protest later this week.

The airport secured a High Court injunction against campaigners connected to Just Stop Oil and other environmental campaigns over fears they would storm the site in protest.

Lawyers for the airport argued their case after being told that JSO protesters were planning action at Gatwick on Saturday.

Timothy Morshead KC, representing Gatwick, said it had been informed by the Metropolitan Police that JSO was planning a protest at the airport near Crawley on July 27.

The barrister said Gatwick was “the last major airport” not to be similarly covered by an order which left it “singularly exposed” to protesters who might “scan to see which airport was not protected by an injunction and target that”.

There was no evidence of a “specific threat” against Gatwick, Mr Morshead said, but added that the “impossibility of judging how events will unfold is one of the reasons for acting on a precautionary basis”.

The injunctions come weeks after Just Stop Oil protesters targeted Stansted Airport and a jet believed to belong to Taylor Swift by spraying it with orange paint.

Mr Morshead said a “blueprint” for plans had involved cutting fences, people gluing themselves to runways and activists climbing onto planes to prevent their departure as part of their opposition to the use of fossil fuels at airports.

Gatwick was a “natural target” for such action which could cause “severe disruption and financial loss” and “significant delays for passengers”, he argued.

Mr Justice Ritchie granted the injunction against “persons unknown” connected to JSO or other environmental campaigns.

He said it was “appropriate” to protect Gatwick against protests “which may cause, death, injury or chaos”.

The injunction will be reviewed after 12 months.

The news comes as Gatwick says it is set to face its busiest summer since the Covid-19 pandemic.

The airport was also affected by the mass Crowdstrike outage which affected millions of Microsoft devices internationally on Friday.