North Yorkshire Police have been involved in a major operation targeting a climate protest overnight.
Officers have arrested 22 people at a climate camp at Drax Power Station near Selby.
Working with both the West Yorkshire force and British Transport Police, they have also seized “items which would be associated with large scale protest”.
The ‘Reclaim The Power’ camp is due to run from today until Tuesday (13 August).
It is described as “a mass protest camp for climate justice”.
The 22 in custody have been arrested “for public order offences which includes conspiracy to interfere with key national infrastructure”.
North Yorkshire Police say officers will have a highly visible presence during the camp “to ensure that disruption to our communities is kept to a minimum”.
They added: “Any offences including outbreaks of disorder will be robustly dealt with.”
The Silver Commander for the operation, Superintendent Ed Haywood-Noble of North Yorkshire Police, said: “Policing is not anti-protest, we are anti-crime and we are here to protect the public.
“The right to peaceful protest is part of UK democracy.
“It’s our responsibility to manage the protest in line with legal obligations. We also have a duty to ensure that people who work at Drax and members of the local community can go about their daily business as usual.
“At a time when police resources are stretched nationally it was essential that we acted both swiftly and robustly to reduce the risk of unlawful activity and disruption over the coming days.”
Reclaim The Power say their protest is taking on Drax as “the world’s biggest tree burner, the UK’s biggest carbon emitter and fueller of environmental racism around the world”.
We have asked them for a response to today’s police operation.
Drax has obtained a court injunction to prevent unlawful protests at the power station. In a statement it said: “We respect everyone’s right to peaceful protest and welcome further efforts to raise the profile of the devastating impact of climate change.
“However, as Drax has been at the forefront of efforts to help the UK to decarbonise at a faster rate than any other country, we feel any targeting of our business during this climate protest is completely misguided.”