Easter 2002 Scotts Hatfield Moor Peat Blockade

East­er peat block­ade 3

Four days of direct action at the Scotts Peat works, Hat­field Moor, near Don­cast­er.
MONDAY 25TH- THURSDAY 28TH MARCH 2002

Hat­field Moor is an eco­log­i­cal­ly vital sys­tem for over 5,000 species. It has been the sub­ject of a cam­paign to save it since the 70s. Peat Alert have been dis­rupt­ing work and tak­ing direct action for over a year. A recent deal by Eng­lish Nature, meant that while the gov­er­ment payed Scotts £17.3 mil­lion to stop min­ing at three sites through­out the coun­try, Scotts have been giv­en 2 more years to dig at Hat­field Moor, which will irre­versibly dam­age the peat bog. Peat Alert had already decid­ed to call a four day block­ade of the Peat Works in the week lead­ing up to the East­er Bank Hol­i­day, the Peat indus­tries busiest time.

An action camp for the 4 day block­ade was planned for near­by. Before the site was tak­en, both night-time and day­time actions to Hat­field Moor had been tak­ing place. Fill­ing in ditch­es and block­ing pipes to stop the peat being drained, plus oth­er sab­o­tage actions on the moors and at the works had caused at least £40,000 worth of damage.(Scotts esti­mate)

When peo­ple turned up to crack the prison training/RAF base site, on the Sat­ur­day morn­ing, it had been passed from the Min­istry of Defence’s hands into a pri­vate landown­er. The landown­er turned up and after some dis­cus­sion gave us per­mis­sion to stay at the site and even gave us the keys to his hefty lock! The police put pres­sure on both the landown­er to evict us and the Green Tree Pub where we were meet­ing for the street par­ty. The cops told the pub we would bar­ri­cade our­selves into the carpark. The land­la­dy thought this was ridicu­lous — as it was!

East­er peat block­ade 1

The camp­site was a fortress — and for once to our favour! Things remained from its MoD days com­plete with barbed wire rimmed fences and bar­ri­cades, our own four flags flew from the old radar tow­er. An evi­dence gath­er­ing team was per­ma­nent­ly sta­tioned across from the site. The Anar­chist Teapot pro­vid­ed a field kitchen and Gen­er­a­tor X sup­plied us with wind and solar pow­er. Before the block­ade begun, Scotts were ring­ing var­i­ous cam­paign groups plead­ing what could they do to stop the block­ade.

East­er peat block­ade 2

On the Mon­day morn­ing, day 1, the police had out a heli­copter, police hors­es, dogs, lan­drovers and vans at the cross­roads lead­ing lead­ing up to the peat works. Police had been search­ing ditch­es and found lock on equip­ment, a tri­pod and maybe oth­er stuff that groups had been plan­ning to use at exit points.They had tried to get a Sec­tion 60 (stop,search, demask) which was at first denied but lat­er grant­ed, A sec­tion 14 (des­ig­nat­ed protest area only) was in place; between a post say­ing assem­bly start and point A.

About 100 peo­ple left the ‘Green Tree’ pub at one o’clock. Sec­tion 14 was read out, but a bicy­cle sound sys­tem played music and var­i­ous instru­ments and drums were played. The des­ig­nat­ed protest area was a point­less insult and did­n’t suit us — police formed lines to stop the march. Peo­ple con­tin­ued on hold­ing rein­forced ban­ners, padding, hard hats and masks. How­ev­er, we decid­ed to take the path of least resis­tance so we ran cross coun­try and man­aged to take the only exit road from the works.

The road was blocked for two and a half hours, with lor­ries unable to leave the works. 18 vans of cops in riot gear moved in, arrest­ing every­one who stayed in the road (and some who did­n’t), tar­get­ting spe­cif­ic indi­vid­u­als. It took them a futher hour to clear the road. There were 35 arrests, and 2 that got away. All but one were released by 5 am (except one for refus­ing bail con­di­tions) The bail con­di­tions were not to go with­in 2 miles of the works. A police map read­ing error meant that every­one COULD go back to the site, and onto the south moors where most of the peat extrac­tion takes place. No lor­ries left the peat works that night.

On Tues­day, day 2, FoE had called a demo in front of the Peat Works, which some of our num­ber attend­ed. Oth­ers went out in small groups to try and find a lor­ry to block­ade or going out on the moors ditch fill­ing. The FoE demo was meant to go to the works, but was trapped in the des­ig­nat­ed protest area. Their pres­ence unnerved the police enough to pre­vent most of lor­ries leav­ing the works whilst they remained there. This how­ev­er also meant our small groups of blockad­ing and lock­ing-on teams could­n’t get to the lor­ries to lock on. Lor­ries were lat­er being moved in con­voy, with a police escort of vans and motor­cy­cles at the front and back of the con­voy. This con­tin­ued from the peat works and along the A18 to the motor­way. Police vans were con­tin­u­al­ly parked up along the long road lead­ing from the peat works to the main road, so a cross coun­try ambush was not pos­si­ble. The lack of hedge cov­er and flat open land also worked against us. After crawl­ing around and get­ting cov­er in ditch­es by the sides of roads all day groups decid­ed to head back to site. Peo­ple on the moors were even­tu­al­ly stopped by the police, three were arrest­ed for break­ing bail con­di­tions (they were out­side the two mile exclu­sion zone) they were even­tu­al­ly released with­out charge once we had shown the police how to map read.

Also see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1894469.stm

On Wednes­day, day 3, we had anoth­er cun­ning plan to block­ade the lor­ries fur­ther away from the peat works. We planned to block­ade and lock on to the con­voy as they stopped at a round­about on the A18 — the new exit route for the lor­ries. This would have pre­vent­ed the lor­ries from leav­ing and get­ting on to the motor­way. The nor­mal exit route was not being used as it passed too near to our camp­site! Groups of peo­ple left the site and trav­elled to train sta­tions, get­ting to the loca­tion of the planned block­ade. Oth­er small groups went to the des­ig­nat­ed protest area or onto the moor as a decoy. There were so many police that whilst lit­tle groups streched our resources, the police were able to effec­tive­ly mon­i­tor all of the groups and avail­able train sta­tions to find out where we were going. They once again held up the lor­ries at the peat works, so that no con­voys left whilst we were at the round­about. We hung around for a while to make sure they were not exit­ing our way, then head­ed head­ed back to the camp­site.

East­er peat block­ade 4

On Thurs­day we realised in the morn­ing meet­ing that the num­ber of peo­ple on site had dwin­dled, lots of peo­ple had bail con­di­tions and there was­n’t enough peo­ple to defend and tat down the site as well as doing an effec­tive action. We decid­ed to tat down. This was done whilst being watched by five police vans, who “had noticed a lot of activ­i­ty and were won­der­ing what was going on?” Any tat vehi­cles leav­ing the site were pulled over and fol­lowed by motor­cy­cle cops all day — even when they were being lured into areas for a ‘remem­ber the min­ers strike kick­ing’. When we final­ly left the camp in a con­voy of 5 vehi­cles they fol­lowed us again and pulled us over, when we final­ly set off again they con­tin­ued with a 6 police car escort, all the way and into Sheffield. This was get­ting so ridicu­lous we pulled over and told them to go away, which they then did! Police used a mas­sive amount of their resources and sur­veil­lance and con­tin­ued har­rass­ment. The heli­copters were out each night beam­ing the search light onto the camp­site and moors — ever won­dered why there is a mir­ror on site — well it can be use­ful for reflect­ing back their head­lights and spot­lights back against them — par­tic­u­lar­ly effec­tive against the heli­copter!

All in all the week was con­sid­ered to be a suc­cess. Despite only being able to block the road for 3 and half hours on the Mon­day, we seri­ous­ly dis­rupt­ed Scot­t’s oper­a­tion through­out the week. When we are not there a lor­ry nor­mal­ly leaves the peat works every four min­utes dur­ing that week. We man­aged to reduce it to about 20 every 6 hours. We achieved a lot of local sup­port for defend­ing the peat moors and gave more peo­ple a chance to see the eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion that is peat min­ing. We also gained sup­port against the police for their use of force on Mon­day, and their over polic­ing on resources. Whilst most of South York­shire police were sit­ting oppo­site our camp­site it took police in Sheffield 45 min­utes to get to a shoot­ing of a bus dri­ver — and they claim they have jus­tice with courage! Ha!ha!

Many more peo­ple will now be back for both adver­tised and impromp­tu actions.

Our next action will be a Mass Tres­pass on the moors on Sat 11th May. It will be a chance to dis­rupt work and protest against the enclo­sure of com­mon land that allows this eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion to hap­pen, it will also be in remem­ber­ance of Ben­ny Roth­man, from the Kinder Scout Mass Tres­pass who died recent­ly.

Meet­ing 12 noon, Tyrham Hall Hotel, A614 south of Hat­field Wood­house. For more details see http://www.peatalert.org.uk/campaign/masstrespass.htm .

Peo­ple will be going out and fill­ing ditch­es, dis­rupt­ing work between now and then and slash­ing the peat bags at Gar­den Cen­tres. Why not join in!