Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said officers have to wait until demonstrations meet a legal threshold of disruption before they can be shut down.
12 October 2022
Protesters blocking main roads in central London have not yet caused major disruption despite “enormous” policing resources being taken up dealing with the demonstrations, the new head of the Metropolitan Police has said.
Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley told the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee that officers have to wait until protests by Just Stop Oil and Animal Rebellion are deemed to meet a legal threshold of causing major disruption before they can be shut down.
His officers are in touch with Transport for London, local councils and the emergency services several times per day to check the level of disruption caused.
Sir Mark said: “Over the last 11 days, all of those partners have been of a view that it doesn’t cause serious disruption.”
He went on: “As soon as we have evidence of that serious disruption either being crossed as a line, or a good prospect of it being crossed, we’ll start being more assertive with our powers.”
So far there have been 338 arrests, mainly supporters of Just Stop Oil, but also a few of Animal Rebellion.
Sir Mark said: “This has been a really difficult operation over the 11 days so far. And it annoys me how much it’s taking away from policing local communities.
“In 11 days we have put 2,156 officer days into doing this, so that’s a couple of hundred per day roughly.
“That’s an enormous amount of policing resources that aren’t tackling issues that matter to local communities, aren’t dealing with knife crime, aren’t dealing with violence against women and girls.”
On Tuesday, Home Secretary Suella Braverman said she expects police to use the “full powers” given to them by the Government after fossil fuel protesters reportedly obstructed a fire engine and an ambulance.
Ms Braverman branded the actions of demonstrators from Just Stop Oil in west London as “self-defeating” and “completely indefensible”.
Videos shared online on Tuesday show a fire engine and an ambulance on blue lights unable to get through traffic after 32 protesters – some gluing themselves to the road – blocked three routes in Knightsbridge and Brompton Road in London.
Just Stop Oil said it had paused its blockade to let a fire engine through.
