Tag: climate chaos

Police clear Marble Arch roads

I lost count of the number of police vehicles that I saw as I walked along the centre of the northbound carriageway of Park Lane – and not all of them are in the picture. There were more in some of the other streets in the area too, and it was clear that this was an operation on a huge scale

Marble Arch is a key junction in London, with the Bayswater road, Edgware Road, Oxford St and Park Lane all feeding in and taking out traffic from the gyratory system around the arch. The whole area had been closed off by Extinction Rebellion on the morning of 15th March and remained closed over a week later on the 24th. I imagine there was a great deal of political pressure on the Met to clear it.

On the hard standing in front of the Arch, things seemed to be going on much as usual, though there were noticeably fewer tents and fewer people than when I visited the previous week.

But there was a crowd around a ring of police who had surrounded the group blocking the entrance to the system from Oxford St and were clearly intending to arrest them. This appeared to be the last of the road blocks still in place, with a few people still locked together. Police were trying to get those outside the cordon to move away, and were beginning to threaten them and me with arrest, but I managed to take a few pictures working between police legs.

I walked around the area for a few more minutes taking pictures, then began to walk towards Belgrave Square where I hoped to photograph protesters calling on Turkey to recognise the Armenian Genocide. As I walked down Park Lane I passed the samba band and others coming to Marble Arch around 45 minutes after me.

A few more pictures at Extinction Rebellion at Marble Arch.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, please share on social media.
And small donations via Paypal – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

XR continues

Nine days after they brought central London to a halt, Extinction Rebellion were still around, although the ‘Garden Bridge’ and Oxford Circus had been cleared and the traffic was now flowing around Parliament Square where I arrived to photograph them again.

Clearly the numbers here were considerably down on last week, with only a few hundred on their way to lobby their MPs, and a general meeting was taking place in the square as I got there.

There wasn’t really a great deal to photograph, though I tried hard. There were a few people up in the trees in the corner of the square by the Supreme Court (I still think of it as Middlesex Guildhall) but these large London Planes have impressive leaf cover, and after a while I gave up trying to get a decent picture.

Then news came through that the police were beginning to clear the roads around the main Extinction Rebellion camp at Marble Arch, and a group prepared to get ready to march behind the samba band to support the rebels there, and I decided to go with them.

It took some time to get people organised to leave, and when they did, progress was slow. I walked with them until they were halfway up The Mall and then rushed away to get to Marble Arch. Normally I might have taken a bus, but bus services were still not moving up Park Lane as it was still blocked, so I hurried there on foot. The group led by the samba band only arrived after I had been taking pictures for some time and was leaving.

More at Extinction Rebellion in Parliament Square

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, please share on social media.
And small donations via Paypal – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.