Direct action environmental campaigners are promising to target 11 different businesses across Bristol city centre on Friday.
The demonstration is being billed as a ‘raucous tour of some of the worst climate offenders in town’, with demonstrators targeting everyone from an Esso petrol station and a oil drilling company to a law firm that has defended fracking companies.
The rolling protest will also demonstrate outside the regional offices of Defra, the Government’s environment department, and at the statue of Edward Colston in The Centre.
It’s unclear how many demonstrators will take part, or whether there will be more widespread disruption to the public, but Bristol Live understands the businesses involved - and neighbouring businesses - have received police advice over the plans.
Updates - you can follow the protest here.
The demonstrators come from a wide coalition of green, environmental and anti-capitalist campaign groups, including the Bristol Green Anti-Capitalist Front, Bristol Rising Tide, Bristol Earth Strike and Earth Strike UK.
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A spokesperson for the organisers said they would be ‘making some noise’.
“Corporations in the heart of Bristol are engaging in massive environmental destruction - and reaping the profits from it,” she said.
“They rely on us keeping quiet to continue it - so it's about time we made some noise,” she said, adding an appeal for more people to get involved: “Join us for a raucous tour of some of the worst climate offenders in town.
“Everyone who wants to save the planet is welcome to take part, whether you want to shout through a megaphone from the front or wave a placard from the back!
“The locations for our actions are largely based on the excellent research done by Bristol Rising Tide,” she added.
Organisers are working to a map of 13 locations to be targeted, including some on Temple Way, around Temple Meads and Redcliffe, Queen Square and elsewhere in the city centre.
But the demonstrators have promised it could be unpredictable. “There is plenty more research we have as well,” one demonstrator wrote on the event’s Facebook page. “So once we set off, expect the event to be pretty free-form in its location.”
Previous actions by the demonstrators have involved blockading the entrance to and occupying the roof of Airbus in Filton, stopping Immigration vans and raids, as well as the original road blockades that evolved into Extinction Rebellion.
The demonstrators are gathering first at Queen Square at 12.30pm, and the event is expected to last at least a couple of hours.
