26/11/2001 Work stopped for 3 hours at Hatfield Moor Works
On Monday 26th November a group of around 30 people entered the site of the Scotts Company UK Ltd.
As work on the surrounding peat moorland has stopped for the winter, the action was concentrated on the adjacent works, where peat is processed and bagged for sending off to farmers and garden centres around the countries.
A group of people blocked the bridge leading off the site whilst the rest tried to shut down machinery and occupy the offices. Thanks to health and safety, all machinery was switched off as soon as everyone arrived on site, and the time was spent exploring the site, chatting to workers and blockading the front gate. The group that was blockading the bridge received a lot of hassle off security, management, and drivers trying to leave. There were too few people and after a few nasty confrontations with protesters almost being run over they left the bridge and joined everyone else in occupying the works.
The rest of the day passed smoothly with protestors given a guided tour of the site by workers. A lot of information was gathered and a few pixies partially damaged the back up generator. Lots of keys went missing including the key for the main computer process controller which was left turned off and broken in the lock.
After about 3 hours the most amusingly polite police you could ever hope to meet turned up in sufficient quantities to remove people from site, after issueing each person a notice that they would be arrested for aggravated trespass should they return within 3 months.
Ha! As if that will stop us!