Newbury Bypass - Conflict

Conflict

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.

Although the majority of local residents were in favour of building the bypass, a sizeable minority were against it. A protest group of local businesses opposed to the building of the road was formed, which named 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 began 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 protesters began to occupy the land that was scheduled for clearance, a tactic known as Tree sitting, 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 protesters 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. Musician and activist Julian Cope was a frequent visitor to the camps and would document many of the protesters struggles in his album Interpreter.

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 (3 m) 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 9 January 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 more than 20 camps along the route of the bypass, with names such as 'Skyward', 'Rickety Bridge', 'Granny Ash', 'Quercus Circus', 'Sea View', 'Babble Brook', 'Radical Fluff', 'Pixie Village' and 'Heartbreak Hotel'.

Richard Turner Ltd of Chesterfield, a firm specialising in industrial rope access, was hired to provide climbers to evict protesters 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, 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 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".

On Monday 29 January 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 11 February 1996 around 5,000 people from around the UK marched for 2 miles (3 kilometres) 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 (10 March 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, 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.

However, in spite of the protests the road was eventually finished after 34 months in November 1998 and now provides a high speed section of the A34.

The English band New Model Army commemorated the conflict in its song "Snelsmore Woods".