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the free encyclopedia.
The M11 link road protest
was an anti-road campaign in
London,
UK in the early
1990s. Though ultimately
unsuccessful, the campaign,
together with others in the UK at
that time, is considered by many
to have played a major role in the
large-scale cutbacks in the road
building programme that followed
in subsequent years.
Background
A new road linking what is now
the
M11 motorway with the A102(M)
Eastway in North-East London was
initially proposed in the
1960s. At that time, traffic
travelling between central and
southern areas of London and
East Anglia had to contend
with a long stretch of
single-carriageway roads through
the suburbs of
Leyton,
Leytonstone and
Wanstead. However, the road
scheme was sidelined, and
increasing traffic levels
throughout the next two decades
led to serious
congestion in these areas.
The
Conservative government under
Margaret Thatcher, elected in
1979, introduced a policy of
intensive road building. Under
these plans, the M11 link road
scheme was resurrected. In the
1980s, contractors were
appointed to carry out the work
and a
compulsory purchase of
property along the proposed route
was undertaken.
Around the same time,
environmentalist groups were
voicing
dissent towards the upturn in
road building. This began to
manifest itself in
direct action campaigns
against road construction schemes
that were actually in progress,
notably at
Twyford Down in
Hampshire. The campaigns
attracted several thousand people
to their cause, many of whom were
from
counterculture backgrounds.
The protest campaign in East
London
By
1990, the majority of the
houses along the route of the
proposed road had been
compulsorily purchased, although
the
demolition process had not yet
begun. This led to many of the
houses being let out to housing
associations, while others lay
empty. Large numbers of the empty
houses were
squatted while some original
residents were refusing to sell or
move out of their properties.
Locally-based protest against
the link road scheme was taking
place, but the availability of
free housing along the route
attracted large numbers of
campaigners from around the UK and
beyond. The arrival of these
experienced anti-road protest
veterans gave great impetus to the
campaign.
Sophisticated techniques were
used to delay the construction of
the road.
Sit-ins and site invasions
were combined with
sabotage to temporarily stop
construction work. This led to
large numbers of police and
constant security patrols being
employed to protect the
construction sites, at great
expense — the delays and security
escalated the total cost of
construction by tens of millions
of
pounds.
The protesters were successful
at publicising the campaign, with
most UK newspapers and TV news
programmes covering the protests
on a regular basis.
Desktop publishing, then in
its infancy, was used to produce
publicity materials for the
campaign. A number of "stunts"
were carried out; most notable
were
rooftop protests on the
Palace of Westminster and at
the home of
John McGregor, the
Minister for Transport at that
time, both of which received front
page coverage in national
newspapers.
To counter the campaign, the
government began
evicting residents along the
route and demolishing the empty
houses. In response, the
protesters set up the "autonomous
republics" of "Wanstonia" and
"Euphoria" in some groups of the
houses, going so far as to issue
"passports". Extreme methods were
used to force the engineers to
halt demolition, including
underground tunnels with
protesters
concreted inside them.
Despite these actions, the
resources of the government began
to win out over the protesters,
and by
1994 only one small street,
Claremont Road, was left
unevicted. The street was
completely occupied by protesters;
the houses were painted with
extravagant designs, both
internally and externally, and
sculptures erected in the road.
Rave parties were held and
underground bands performed on
stages set up in the street.
In November 1994 the eviction
of Claremont Road took place.
Several hundred police and
bailiffs carried out the
eviction over several days; the
street was razed to the ground
immediately afterwards. This event
marked the end of the M11 link
road protest as a major British
protest.
Following the Claremont Road
eviction things died down for a
little while. Many of the
non-resident protesters moved on
to places such as Newbury, where
other roads protests were taking
place, while locals debated what
to do. A house on Fillebrook Road,
near Leytonstone tube station, was
the only house left standing once
that street had been knocked down.
It was a listed building, waiting
for permission to demolish, and
due to a security blunder had been
left empty. The house was
reoccupied and renamed Munstonia,
for its spooky appearance, and the
protest was back on.
A tower was built out of the
roof, similar to the one at
Claremont Road, and the usual
system of pitfalls and blockades
were built, and a core of around
thirty protesters ensured that
there were always people staying
there. Munstonia was evicted in
June 1995, the eviction itself
became the longest eviction of any
single building in Europe ever,
taking over eight hours to remove
all the protesters from the roof
and the tower. As usual many were
locked into concrete blocks or
chained to the tower itself. As at
Claremont Road, the building was
immediately demolished. Once again
the press declared this "The End
Of The Road", and for the most
part it was. A camp was
established on the fringes of
Wanstead Flats, by the Green Man
roundabout in Leytonstone.
Naturally this was called
Greenmania, and lasted a few
months, being evicted in September
2005.
Construction of the road,
already under way by this stage,
was then free to continue largely
unhindered, although systematic
sabotage of building sites by
local people continued. It was
completed in
1999 and given the designation
A12; its continuation, the former
A102(M), was also given this
number as far as the
Blackwall Tunnel. The official
opening of the road took place
without fanfare, in marked
contrast to the celebrity
extravaganzas previously
commonplace at the opening of new
roads.
Consequences of the protest
campaign
The M11 link road protest was
ultimately unsuccessful in its
major aim: to stop the building of
the M11 link road. However, direct
action techniques first employed
or refined at the protest have
been transferred to numerous other
protests around the world. Many
veterans of the anti-M11 link road
campaign went on to protest the
construction of other road schemes
such as the
A34
Newbury bypass in
Berkshire; campaigns such as
these helped to shift public
opinion in the UK away from the
unfettered building of new roads.
In the years after the campaign,
the Conservative administration
shelved the plans for a number of
proposed road schemes, and it is
only since the turn of the
20th century that the current
Labour government is beginning
once more to plan an increase in
major road network upgrades.
Many ex-M11 protesters went on
to join other pro-environment,
anti-globalisation and direct
action campaigns, such as
Reclaim the Streets. As such,
the after-effects of the M11 link
road protests are still being felt
today.
For Leytonstone the
consequences were mixed.
Supporters say the road helped end
the years of planning blight that
had effected Leytonstone, although
critics would suggest that the
economic upswing and housing boom
would have had the same effect.
The road is still not popular with
local people, and divides the
communities of Leyton and
Leytonstone in half. Even a decade
on, there are fairly regular local
newspaper complaints from people
whose residential streets have
become rat-runs, or who haven't
got the compensation they were
promised (or believe they
deserve). The noise and pollution
are noticeable, unpleasant and
affect house-prices (though of
course, thanks to the housing boom
these house prices are wildly
higher than residents would have
believed at the time of the
protests), and few would suggest
that the road has eased local
traffic when faced with a morning
rush hour traffic jam. However,
the aims of the road were
achieved, it is now much quicker
for non-residents to get through
East London by car.
