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Revealed: £7.7 million cost of policing Just Stop Oil’s 13 weeks of protests on the streets of London
25 July 2023, 05:59 | Updated: 25 July 2023, 06:24
Policing slow marches by Just Stop Oil cost the same as the annual salary of 200 officers.
The Metropolitan Police spent more than £7.7 million responding to 515 disruptive protests by the eco-activists during their 13-week campaign of slow marches.
Figures, shared exclusively with LBC, show that the response across the city since the end of April took up more than 23,500 officer shifts.
The Met previously said some of those officers had to be moved away from front-line community policing as they worked to clear roads and reduce chaos for commuters.
The money spent is the equivalent of paying the salary of around 200 officers or buying more than 9,000 tasers.
Since the end of April, the police force says 273 arrests were made in connection with slow marches, while Section 12 orders, which impose conditions on a protest, were issued 420 times.
On Friday, LBC reported that the campaign of daily slow marches in London was coming to an end, despite a pledge by the group to continue protesting new oil and gas licenses through other forms of civil resistance.
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James Harvey, one of the group’s activists, said: "We can’t just stop when the government is committing genocide. There are a number of tools of civil resistance – one of them is slow marching and we may see more of them in the future.
"We will use whatever means we have at our disposal to get our message across and that may include slow marches."
It’s understood Just Stop Oil recruited groups of climate activists from across the UK for its three months of action, who worked on a rota of coming to London for a week at a time.
This group would slow march, cause disruption and in some cases be arrested, before returning home until their next call to the capital.
In some cases, demonstrators were moved off the street within minutes, while others who refused to comply with warnings, were arrested.
A spokesperson for the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: "The Mayor supports the democratic right to protest, however Sadiq has always been clear that protests must be carried out safely and lawfully and should not put Londoners or the capital’s recovery at risk.
"The extreme weather events London has experienced in recent years show how much more needs to be done to tackle the climate emergency, but protestors should consider whether their methods risk turning public opinion against a vitally important cause.
"The Mayor supports the Met’s efforts to keep Londoners safe and keep our city moving."
Over the 13-week campaign, politicians rushed to change laws around how police respond to protests, giving clarity over when officers can step in and impose conditions on a demonstration.
On Friday alone, the Met responded to 43 slow marches on roads across London.
In some cases, demonstrators were moved off the street within minutes, while others who refused to comply with warnings were arrested.
