Rebecca Lush

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Rebecca Lush is an environmentalist specialising in climate change and transport. She was a founder of the UK's 1990's direct action road protest movement. She co-founded Road Alert! and helped organise protests at Twyford Down, the M11 link road protest and against the Newbury bypass. She was one of a group of people who challenged the UK Government’s Breach of the Peace legislation at the European Court of Justice. In 2005 she founded Road Block to challenge renewed road-building and is currently Roads and Climate Campaigner for the Campaign for Better Transport.

[edit] Biography

Rebecca became an active environmentalist at the age of 20 while she was studying politics at Bristol University. In 1992 she joined the protest camp at Twyford Down against the construction of a section of the M3 motorway being built close to where she grew up.^[1] This protest was the first of many during the 1990's and these contributed to the end of the then government's road building programme, that had included the construction of 2,700 miles of new trunk roads in the UK.^[2] Rebecca lived at the 'Dongas' protest camp, named after the medieval trackways the camp was protecting. The protesters were known as the Dongas Tribe.^[3]

In July 1993 Rebecca and five others (including Emma Must who later went on to win the Goldman Environmental Prize)^[4] were imprisoned for a month for breaking a High Court injunction banning them from Twyford Down. While in Holloway Prison she was visited in by the then European Commissioner for the Environment, Carlo Ripa de Meana.^[1]

Rebecca co-founded Road Alert!, a national networking service for the anti-roads protest which organised many of the mass demonstrations of the period. This was the sister organisation to Alarm UK, an alliance of community groups resisting road schemes.^[5]

She also co-founded the M11 direct action protests that took place between 1993 and 1995 against the building of an urban motorway through north London. She was arrested on the 30th September 1993 and was ordered to agree to be bound over for twelve months, to keep the peace and pay the sum of £100; she refused and was sent to prison for seven days. In relation to this she, and others challenged the UK Government’s Breach of the Peace legislation at the European Court of Justice in 1998.^[6]

In 1996 construction of the Newbury bypass started and the Road Alert! offices were moved to the town.^[7] Before the bypass was completed there were over 1,000 people arrested and a policing bill of £26 million.^[8]

Between 1994 and 1997 most remaining road schemes were cancelled, the road protests wound down and Rebecca stopped campaigning in 1997.^[2]

In 2002 the government proposed a new major road building program and expansion of aviation.^[2] Rebecca and number of other road protest veterans visited the Department for Transport to warn of renewed direct action and delivered a D Lock as a symbol of the earlier protests^[9] and Rebecca later founded Road Block to support a growing number of protests around the country.^[10]

In September 2005 she ‘pied’ motoring journalist Jeremy Clarkson after he collected an honorary degree in Engineering from Oxford Brookes University. She did this in protest at his dismissive comments on the effects of climate change.^[11] She also 'pied' the Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling when he appeared at the launch of the pro-aviation advocacy group, Future Heathrow, explaining that she was incensed by the presence of Mr Darling saying "I was absolutely appalled. Why have a campaign group when you have already got the minister on your side?".^[12]

In 2006 the ethical cosmetics company Lush approached Rebecca for advice on their environmental policies on a voluntary basis. They subsequently introduced the ‘Charity Pot’, a product where 100 per cent of the purchase price (but not the vat) goes to fund activist groups, including anti-road building groups. Mark Constantine, CEO of Lush explained ""I hate cars, I really hate them, but I'd been giving up the ghost, until Rebecca came along and we started all this up"^[13]. Lush later introduced a range of 'Go Green' products, which they said was inspired by Rebecca and were for people who take public transport and cycle.^[14]

In December 2006 Rebecca highlighted four priority protests; the Mottram to Tintwistle Bypass (in the Peak District National Park), plans to widen the M1 motorway and the M6 motorway and to build a new road from Heysham to M6.^[15]

In January 2007 Road Block became a project within the Campaign for Better Transport (UK) where she is now their Roads and Climate Campaigner.^[16]

In 2008 Rebecca is challenging the government on its transport policies,^[17] is continuing to oppose the individual road schemes^[18] and support local activists.^[19] She writes occasionally for the Guardian's 'Comment is Free' website^[20] and publishes a regular blog^[17]