Few now remember Swampy or Muppet Dave. But two decades ago these young environmentalists were part of an extraordinary wave of activism that defined and drove the anti-road protests of the 1990s.
By making common cause with middle-class twitchers, badger-lovers and annoyed local residents, as well as pulling eye-catching stunts such as burying themselves in tunnels in the path of oncoming bulldozers, they derailed a 2,700-mile road-building programme billed by the then Conservative government as the “biggest since the Romans”.
After years of dragging protesters out of tunnels and trees the length and breadth of Britain, this was finally dumped by Tony Blair’s new government in 1997. The Roads for Prosperity policy may have paid insufficient attention to the need to reduce car use at a time of growing environmental awareness but the decision to jam the brakes on construction just as the population started its climb from 58m to 64m has brought its own problems. Only now is a poorer Britain seeking to address the resulting bottlenecks and gaps in the network.