The birth of Britain’s environmental rebellion – aljazeera.com

Annie Dare – 21 Apr 202221 Apr 2022
In 1989, the Conservative British government announced a $19bn plan ($43bn in today’s money) to build and overhaul more than 4,345km (2,700 miles) of major inter-urban roads, motorways and bypasses. It declared the infrastructure project the United Kingdom’s largest roads programme “since the Romans”.
But much of the plan, whose aim was to underpin economic growth by relieving congestion – traffic on British roads had increased by 35 percent since 1980 – also smashed through some of the UK’s most pristine nature — ancient woodlands, water meadows, historic valleys and downs or grass-covered hills — places treasured by locals and protected for their biodiversity or beauty.
Opposition to the loss of these pockets of nature was fierce, and from 1992, when building on the first road began, until 1996, portions of the UK convulsed with determined and flamboyant acts of resistance. A new type of protest was born.