Newbury bypass

The Newbury bypass, officially known as 'The Winchester-Preston Trunk Road (A34) (Newbury Bypass)', is a 9 mile stretch of dual carriageway road which bypasses the town of Newbury in Berkshire, England. It is located to the west of the town and forms part of the A34 road.

From the beginning of January to the end of March 1996 the clearance of approximately 360 acres of land, including 120 acres of woodland, to make way for the building of the road led to some of the largest anti-road protests in European history, with around 7000 people having directly demonstrated on the site of the bypass route in some way and over 800 arrests being made. The cost of policing the protest, known as 'Operation Prospect' and run jointly by Thames Valley Police and Hampshire Constabulary, was approximately £2.55 million. In addition to this, the cost of hiring private security guards to protect the contractors clearing the land was approximately £1.5 million.

The protest was popularly known as the Third Battle of Newbury, a name which was also adopted by one of the main protest groups. The name was chosen in reference to the Civil War battles that took place close to the town in 1643 and 1644.

Proposals

The first Newbury bypass was built in 1963; however by the 1980s this proved insufficient to cope with the huge volume of traffic travelling through the Newbury area. In 1981 a new road to be built to the west of Newbury, mainly following the path of the disused Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway railway line, was proposed to bypass the town centre. This route was very controversial because it ran through three Sites of Special Scientific Interest — Snelsmore Common plus the Rivers Lambourne and Kennet; Penn Wood which was part of the North Wessex Downs AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty); the English Heritage registered battlefield site of the first Battle of Newbury during the English Civil War in 1643; and The Chase, a National Trust nature reserve. It was also found that areas of the proposed bypass route were home to a rare snail, known as the Desmoulin's Whorl Snail.

A public inquiry into the plans was held in 1988, which found in favour of the road. Opponents argued that the decision was flawed and possibly illegal as there was no Environmental Impact Assessment — a legal requirement incorporated into British law two weeks after the start of the 1988 public enquiry. However, the inquiry decision was made in accordance with legislation at the time. The plans were passed in a closed session of parliament, after a pro forma hearing, a procedure which many considered to be undemocratic.

The road was originally approved for construction to begin in 1994. However, the then Secretary of State for Transport, Dr. Brian Mawhinney announced that it would be delayed pending a further review. On 5 July 1995 he announced that the building of the road was to proceed.

Conflict

File:Newbury Camps Map -1.jpg

Map of the protest camps on the route of the Newbury Bypass in February 1996.

The bypass led to immense protests in an attempt to halt the felling of trees and the commencement of building work. A number of protesters were veterans from the Twyford Down protests over the building of the M3 motorway. Others were students, unemployed people, part time workers and people taking time off from work to protest. In 1994, a local comprehensive school teacher, Helen Anscombe, founded The Third Battle of Newbury, an umbrella group of organisations against the bypass.

The majority of local residents were in favour of the building of the bypass, although a significant minority were against it. A protest group of local businesspeople opposed to the building of the road was formed, which called itself 'CAMBUS'. The split of opinion in and around Newbury concerning the building of the road was regularly demonstrated in the lively debate seen in the letters page of the local newspaper, the Newbury Weekly News .

Clearance work begain on 2 August 1995 when bulldozers demolished six empty buildings in the path of the bypass — three houses, a railway signal box, a lodge at Mary Hare Grammar School for deaf children and a prefabricated church near Snelsmore Common.

From July 1995 protestors began to occupy the land that was scheduled for clearance in an effort to stop the felling of trees. Many lived in tree houses, which were also known as 'twigloos', while others occupied home-made tents on the ground made from hazel branches covered with tarpaulin known as 'benders'.

The first camp was at Snelsmore Common. Around September 1995 a further encampment grew up alongside the Kennet and Avon Canal and the River Kennet. Around October 1995 protestors set up a third encampment at Reddings Copse. By December 1995 there were three further camps at The Chase, Elmore Plantation and Rack Marsh on the River Lambourn. Protesters in many of the camps claimed squatters rights through use of a Section 6 notice and some camps even had letters delivered to them by the Royal Mail.

Another method used by protesters to stop the clearance work was the digging of underground tunnels, a tactic borrowed from the Viet Cong. A network of tunnels 10 feet down was dug at Snelsmore Common in the belief that heavy machinery would not drive over them in case they collapsed, burying the protesters inside.

Evictions of the protest camps, tree felling and undergrowth clearance work begin on January 9 1996 and conflicts between security guards and protesters were widely reported in the British media. By the following month the number of protesters had increased and there were over 20 camps along the route of the bypass, some with very colourful names such as 'Skyward', 'Rickety Bridge', 'Granny Ash', 'Quercus Circus', 'Sea View', 'Babble Brook' and 'Heartbreak Hotel'.

Richard Turner Ltd. [1]of Chesterfield, a firm specialising in industrial rope access, was hired to provide climbers to evict protestors from the trees. The UK climbing community condemned the actions of the climbers from Richard Turner Ltd., questioning the safety of the procedures they were using [1], and presenting the company with a special 'downside' award at the first British Mountain Festival held at Llandudno on 17 February 1996. Andy MacNae of the The British Mountaineering Council said "Climbers have an enviable environmental record, and the vast majority will be outraged at being associated with actions of this kind." Climber and writer Jim Perrin said "If we, as a community, do not disown and ostracise these mercenaries and renegades, we are undermining the reason for our own existence and helping accelerate the destruction of places we hold most dear"[2].

On Monday January 29 there was a public meeting at the Waterside Centre in Newbury organized jointly by Friends of the Earth and The Green Party to promote the Road Traffic Reduction Bill. At the meeting, environmentalist and broadcaster Dr David Bellamy addressed the crowd of around 400 people and voiced his opposition to the building of the bypass.

On February 11, 1996 around 5,000 people from around the UK marched for two miles along the route from the largest camp at Snelsmore Common to Bagnor in objection to the road. Environmentalists claimed that this was the largest ever single demonstration against road-building in Britain. Two of the marchers were the well-known television presenters Johnny Morris and Maggie Philbin, who lived nearby. The protest was peaceful and there were no arrests.

A national poll published in the Newbury Weekly News (March 10, 1996) found that 53% of respondents thought that "work should stop immediately to allow time for alternatives to be tried".

To continue building the road extra security measures were employed. The two police forces in the area; Thames Valley Police, led by the Assistant Chief Constable Ian Blair [2], the Hampshire Constabulary and also private security firms which were drafted in. The total cost of the security operation was £24 million, whilst the road cost over £100 million.

In spite of the protests the road was eventually finished after 34 months in November 1998.

Construction

Much of the aggregate used in the by-pass was from the decommissioned RAF Greenham Common. The runway, once one of the largest in Europe was broken up and removed (except for one centre section) as part of the effort to return the common to its former state.

Aftermath

The protests led to the government's road-building programme being curtailled with 110 projects being shelved including a bypass at Salisbury, the threat of building more roads such as the Newbury bypass became less likely. The Newbury bypass itself was built with extra environmental provisions to lessen the impact of the road.

References

1. Arthur, Charles (1996) Newbury climbers are 'betraying friends' The Independent (UK): Mar 10, 1996. p.10
2. Vidal, John (1996), Mountaineers back protest, The Guardian Manchester (UK): Feb 17, 1996. p.5

Reading

Evans, Kate, (1998), Copse: The Cartoon Book of Tree Protesting. Orange Dog Productions. ISBN 0953267407
Hindle, Jim, (2006) Nine Miles: Two Winters of Anti-Road Protest. See the associated web site
Merrick (1996), Battle for the Trees. Godhaven Ink.
Road Alert! (1997), Road Raging: Top Tips for Wrecking Roadbuilding. This is available online at Road Alert's web site

External links