News Flash: Fairmile Reclaimed!

At 2am on the 2nd of June 1997, a group of environmental campaigners set up camp consisting of barricades, two lock-ons, a tunnel and a tripod on the former site of the Fairmile anti-roads camp in East Devon, UK. The protesters had been digging tunnels on the site for two weeks under the noses of the CONNECT consortium, who are building the road.

The eviction was carried out peacefully with no incidence of violence. The last campaigners left the site at 4pm the same day.

The aim of the protest was to draw the attention of Britain's new Labour government to the transport issue, and to state that although the trees have gone, we still oppose the DBFO (Design Build Finance Operate) road-building scheme and the short-sightedness of current transport policy.

We ask the Labour government for a full review of PFI (Private Finance Initiative).

D.B.F.O - How it works (or doesn't!)

• Land is bought by the government through compulsory purchase order.
• A private consortium comprising of construction firms, engineers and financial and legal advisors, finance, build and maintain the road for a period of up to 30 years.
• After this time the government pay back the consortium which will shift the burden onto a future government and thus, a future set of tax payers.
• The amount of money paid back depend on the amount of vehicles that have used the road. The more vehicles, the more profit made.
• It is therefore in the financial interests of the consortium to attract as much traffic as possible to use the road.

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