Campaigners may hold another demo at Drax Power Station (From York Press)

Campaigners may hold another demo at Drax Power Station

9:30am Friday 14th August 2009 in News By Richard Catton, richard.catton@thepress.co.uk

DRAX Power Station could once again become the focus for thousands of climate change campaigners as environmentalists vote where to target their next protest.

Police and power station bosses are bracing themselves for a repeat of 2006 when more than 2000 protesters set up camp nearby and tried to close the plant during ten days of “mass action”.

In an online vote entitled, The Great Climate Swoop, the activists are now asking people to choose between a demonstration at either Drax near Selby or Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station in Nottinghamshire.

The group claims it will close down one of the power stations “democratically and together, to say enough is enough,” in October.

The vote currently puts Ratcliffe ahead with 57 per cent of the 527 votes so far.

In 2006 police from 11 forces were drafted in to prevent 600 protesters from disrupting electricity supply from Drax.

Calvin Dow, landlord of the Huntsman Inn in the village of Drax, said: “I wasn’t here at the time of the 2006 protest, but I have heard a lot about it and it wasn’t a pleasant thing. It made a lot of villagers upset.

“The power station has its own security which covers them but it doesn’t cover the village.

“I’m not against the the protesters as individuals, but as villagers it’s got nothing do with us.”

Last week, an exhibition was held to show plans for Drax’s new Ouse Renewable Energy Plant, which it is hoped could power 530,000 homes by burning locally grown biomass – reducing annual CO2 emissions by nearly 3.5million tonnes.

“That’s the equivalent of taking one million cars off the road,” said a spokeswoman.

On the prospect of another climate change camp in October, she said: “Their objective is to reduce climate change and so is ours and we are putting our money where our mouth is.

“The fact is we are making a difference in the here and now.”

In 2006, North Yorkshire Police was left with a bill for £3.8 million after the protests.

A spokesman for the force said: “People are entitled to protest peacefully. The police’s role is to ensure protests stay peaceful and lawful.”