No M11 Link: Although this was one of the major environmental direct action campaigns of the 1990s it was one I did not cover for several reasons. Protests were only a small part of my photography back then and Leyton was an inconvenient journey across London from my home. It was also a campaign which was being documented by a number of dedicated photographers on a largely full-time basis, while I was still working a full-time teaching job a two-hour journey away. But I did visit Claremont Road in Leyton and take a few pictures.
The M11 Link was first planned as a part of the grandiose London Ringways scheme of the 1960s but fortunately most of this was abandoned after the disastrous effects of relatively short sections such as the Westway in North Kensington became clear in the 1970s. But the ‘A12 Hackney to M11 link road‘ remained on the table despite various public inquiries from 1976 on, where local activists were vigorous in their opposition. It was a Tory government in 1989 with their ‘The Roads for Prosperity’ white paper that put it firmly back on the table and preparations for its construction began in 1993.
These involved the demolition of 263 properties along the route, some occupied by long-term residents but others by a wide range of newcomers who had moved in during the 1980s as planning blight affected the area – including many artists and squatters. When the campaign began in 1993, they were joined by “large numbers of anti-road campaigners from around the UK and beyond, attracted by the availability of free housing along the route” where properties had been compulsorily purchased and were empty.
The protesters made use of a wide variety of direct action methods to make construction more difficult, including sit-ins, sabotaging of equipment and materials, concreting themselves in tunnels and a fantastic network of actual nets in the sky between houses.
Police and security staff had to be employed in large numbers and had a very difficult job. The protesters also made great use of then new technology including Desktop Publishing and Fax machines to promote their activities, and achieved considerable news coverage in both the national newspapers and TV.
The main centre of the protest in 1994 was a small street in Leyton, Claremont Road, where all the houses were to be demolished and all but one of the original residents had been moved out and the houses were squatted by protesters who formed a vibrant community. As Wikipedia states, “The houses were painted with extravagant designs, both internally and externally, and sculptures erected in the road; the road became an artistic spectacle that one said “had to be seen to be believed”.
And it was this that I went to photograph in September 1994 and can be seen in the pictures here and on Flickr.
Two months later around 700 bailiffs and police in riot gear arrived on 28th November to evict the protesters. It took them several days due to the various obstacles – and a secret tunnel that enabled evicted protesters to return to the street. The bill for the police needed to protect the bailiffs came to over a million pounds. The total cost of evicting protesters along the whole route was £6 million.
Protests continued against the link road and slowed its progress and doubled its cost. You can read a good account of the Claremont Road eviction and the later ‘Battle of George Green’ on the green fuse web site.
The road was only finally opened in October 1999 as part of the A12. By this time it was an anachronism, partly because the M12 motorway scheme had been scrapped in 1994, but also because of the overall increase in traffic levels meant it was congested from the start. ” By 2014, the road had become the ninth most congested in the entire country.”
There are quite a few more pictures on Flickr – click on any of the above images and you can then go through the whole set. There are also eight panoramas from the site beginning here.
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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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