Climate change protesters say they will be blocking off the road to Valero until they shut down the plant - but will always let emergency services through.

An Extinction Rebellion protester spoke to the Western Telegraph about why he was protesting.

Johnny Woon, one of the protesters, said they were carrying out the protest because people need to make big changes, “to keep this world going.”

“We are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction,” Mr Woon said. “Ninety per cent of scientist agree, the disagreement is about the time frame.

“Can we just selfishly live out our lives, creating carbon at the world’s expense?”

Mr Woon wanted to stress that the group did have compassion for the people they were affecting, pointing out that they let through one of the first people who turned up after they chained themselves together.

“This fella was very distressed, he said his dad was collapsed on the floor and he needed to get through,” Mr Woon said.

The group has a policy of not stopping any ambulances or emergency services personnel - a policy Extinction Rebellion has used in previous protests.

Mr Woon added: “We are compassionate people, he was concerned about his dad - we are doing this as a protest, we don’t want to hurt people or destroy their livelihoods.”

The protestor admitted that the group did not know what the outcome would be from the police and accepted that they may be arrested.

“We are not really sure [what the police will do], we will have to see what happens,” he said.

“This protest is about saving lives and that’s considered a crime. We will be here as long as it takes - until we shut the factory down.”

“We apologise for any inconvenience, we are trying to fight for people’s futures, and we think that is important to do.

“It is not malicious we don’t do this lightly -we are putting our jobs on the line.”