George is right here
9:20amGeorge Monbiot, I know, I know, I make fun of him all too often, but when he gets on to the subject of civil liberties his heart is in the right place.
Using the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, it obtained an injunction against the villagers and anyone else who might protest. This forbids them from "coming to, remaining on, trespassing or conducting any demonstrations, or protesting or other activities" on land near the lake. If anyone breaks this injunction they could spend five years in prison.
The act, parliament was told, was meant to protect women from stalkers. But as soon as it came on to the statute books, it was used to stop peaceful protest. To obtain an injunction, a company needs to show only that someone feels "alarmed or distressed" by the protesters, a requirement so vague that it can mean almost anything. Was this an accident of sloppy drafting? No. Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden, the solicitor who specialises in using this law against protesters, boasts that his company "assisted in the drafting of the ... Protection from Harassment Act 1997". In 2005 parliament was duped again, when a new clause, undebated in either chamber, was slipped into the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act. It peps up the 1997 act, which can now be used to ban protest of any kind.
Mr Lawson-Cruttenden, who represented RWE npower, brags that the purpose of obtaining injunctions under the act is "the criminalisation of civil disobedience". One advantage of this approach is that very low standards of proof are required: "hearsay evidence ... is admissable in civil courts". The injunctions he obtains criminalise all further activity, even though, as he admits, "any allegations made remain untested and unproven".
But then what does anyone expect from the most authoritarian government we've had in living memory? The most illiberal caucus since, well, perhaps since the Bloody Code?
However, there was something else in the piece that interested. Just what was it they were protesting about?
Dr Harbour was one of the people who campaigned to save a local beauty spot - Thrupp Lake - between the Oxfordshire villages of Radley and Abingdon. They used to walk and swim and picnic there, and watch otters and kingfishers. However, RWE npower, which owns the nearby power station at Didcot, wants to empty the lake and fill it with pulverised fly ash.
Mhhm, is this a brave fight to save local land? An outbreak of NIMBYism? OK, so this is a forum, not the most accurate of sources but:
The lake is one of about 10 former gravel pits which are being filled with ash, througn a pipeline from Didcot power station. There are two remaining, Thrupp Lake and a much smaller one next to it. They are about 50 years old, and an ecosystem has developed naturally around them. Thrupp Lake was privately owned but there is a public footpath alongside it and local people see it as an amenity that they would not want to lose. Save Radley Lakes was started when nPower bought them and applied for planning permission to fill them.
So, err, one of those scars on the planet, the result of open cast mining, is to be filled (and then, presumably, covered and made good). Normally one would expect to see environmentalists cheering such a move, the necessary reparation to Gaia of her earlier rape.
Apparently not though. It does appear to be NIMBYism at its most potent. You can't do what you want with your own land because it will take away something I've been enjoying for free for decades. Not exactly the most stirring call for sympathy I've ever heard.
Andy Boddington
December 23rd, 2008 5:48pm Report this comment"Scar on the planet"? Has the writer visited Radley Lakes or seen photographs? Obviously not. The clue in the description that the writer has ignored are the words: "an ecosystem has developed naturally". Yes, these were gravel pits. They are pits no longer but beautiful lakes. NIMBYs object to developments in their back yard. Radley Lakes is miles from the homes of most objectors and it is far from their back yards. Radley Lakes are a place to which people walk from miles away to saviour their beauty, wildlife and relative tranquilly. Even npower, which wanted to dump ash in the lakes, recognises their beauty and ecology. However, it for years claimed that there was no alternative to their destruction if Didcot power station was to function. Now the company has found an alternative and the lakes are saved. There is not a "scar on the planet" or a NIMBY in sight in this campaign. Just nature and communities at their best.
Basil Crowley
December 23rd, 2008 7:00pm Report this commentThe author of the above does not seem to have a high regard for the merits of the cause. I would suggest that he/she do a bit more homework before making such disparaging remarks. Take a look at any of these websites to see the reasons why:
http://www.saveradleylakes.org.uk
http://www.radleyvillage.org.uk
If people protesting to protect the natural environment in their local neighbourhoods is NIMBYism, then I, for one, am all for it. Where better to start if you want to protect the whole planet?
In this case, a much better solution to the problem was found. Rather than destroying a beautiful lake and creating an eyesore, npower has put their ash to good use, one that is (more) profitable to them, profitable to the landfill site operators adjacent to the power station and beneficial to the local communities. In fact it’s been a win win win all round. A valuable resource (PFA) that was to have been sent to landfill as waste, will now be reused. That is what this campaign has been about. Not NIMBYism, but sustainability and protecting the environment from unnecessary harm. The outcome has not resulted in the problem being shifted elsewhere. Quite the contrary in fact.
David Guyoncourt
December 23rd, 2008 8:36pm Report this commentThe author is clearly ignorant of the fact that there are very few truly natural habitats left in the UK, practically all areas of Britain are shaped by farming, forestry, quarrying etc. This lake excavated fifty years ago, together with its surroundings hosts thousands of species some of which are rare and endangered. How do we know? The Save Radley Lakes Group commissioned numerous surveys of the wildlife there. As it happens it is also the top site in Oxfordshire for breeding birds.
Who else will save a local beauty spot and wildlife haven but the locals who know and love it, and then they are branded as NIMBYS! This term of abuse can be hurled at anyone who cares about their local environment. The unjust use of this term to denegrate environmentalists is on a par with the abuse of the Protection From Harrassment Act to suppress lawful protest which the author of the above article is rightly against.
Lakesaver
December 24th, 2008 12:27am Report this commentThe campaign to save these lakes started nearly four years ago and the interest shown by the media was never more than lukewarm - until the efforts of Mr Lawson Cruttendon who propelled the campaign into the limelight.
The sad thing is that an ordinary person can be portrayed as a terrorist and have no right of reply - not because they are prevented, but because they cannot afford the prohibitive costs involved in taking the matter to court
The legislation which has labelled Dr Harbour as a terrorist is used with evidence that would certainly not stand up in a criminal court, and probably not even in a civil court where it is yet to be tested. Like all pendulums, this legislation has gone too far.
Radley Lakes have been saved by the hard work and dedication of many people with the strong support of the community.
Otter
December 24th, 2008 12:44am Report this commentNIMBY-ism, eh? Let’s look at the facts. NIMBY stands for ‘Not In My Back Yard’ – in other words, an attitude that we’re quite happy to have housing estates, quarries, nuclear power stations and so on, we just don’t want them anywhere near us.
In fact, all the Radley Lakes campaigners ever suggested was that there must be a better way of disposing of coal ash from Didcot Power Station than dumping it in a beautiful lake within a designated County Wildlife Site. Now it happens that there’s a huge landfill site right by the power station. The site uses ash from Didcot as an essential part of the landfilling process. But Didcot Power Station must close by 2015, after which the landfill site would have had to bring hundreds of thousands of tonnes of a substitute material to the site by lorry, on Oxfordshire’s already congested roads.
So the Radley Lakes campaigners said: hey, why not stockpile the ash at the landfill site? The ash will be disposed of, the landfill site will have a source of ash it can use after the power station has closed, lorry traffic will be reduced and a wildlife-rich lake will be saved from destruction. Everybody wins.
And that, believe it or not, is the solution which has now been adopted. NIMBY-ism, or just the common sense of ordinary people who had the audacity to suggest to big business and government that sometimes there just might be a slightly better way of doing things?
NIMBY-ism? I think not. NORUTI-ism on the part of the blogger? Very possibly. (In case you’re wondering, it stands for ‘Not Really Understood The Issues’.)
Happy Christmas
Jo Cartmell
December 28th, 2008 3:07pm Report this commentRegarding the author’s comment: ‘Normally one would expect to see environmentalists cheering such a move, the necessary reparation to Gaia of her earlier rape.’ Once the gravel was extracted from the Radley Lakes area, the quarries became naturalised Lakes due to the area being on the floodplain, therefore a natural wetland. Nature was responsible for restocking the land with trees, the wonderful Bee and Pyramidal orchids, amongst many other wild flowers, and the lakes with wetland flora and abundant wildlife. Being a conservationist has taught me that Nature is often wiser than man. Far from being NIMBY’s, our community watched with sadness as lake after lake was filled with waste ash and distressed birds returned from long migrations to find their home destroyed! When a community loves and appreciates its local wetlands and wildlife then it fights for them. I sincerely hope that corporations across the country will listen to the wishes of local people and work together to find sustainable alternatives, just as we have done. It is the only way to behave in this new millennium and is the way forward. I am afraid the author’s attitude is so Last Century!
In fact, one of the UK's famous wetlands visited by thousands each year, the Norfolk Broads, were formed from the remnants of medieval peat diggings, which were flooded as a result of land subsidence and rising sea level. Thankfully, they did not fill them in!
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