Extinction Rebellion campaigners brought a key council meeting to a halt by staging a "die-in protest" at Leeds Civic Hall this afternoon.
Around 30 people had come to observe the panel’s discussions on plans for Leeds Bradford Airport to rebuild its terminal on Thursday.
The video above shows the moment that protesters collapsed to the floor right in the middle of a meeting in which several of the city's high-profile councillors were set to discuss .
Amidst the commotion, . The keys were then handed over to councillors by activist Christopher Hoare, who implored them to think about the implications of the expansion on the environment.
"We have activists now chained outside Leeds Civic Hall," said Christopher.
"Here are the keys. We please ask you to go down, speak to them and then release them."
The meeting was temporarily adjourned while the campaigners were removed from City Plans Panel meeting.
Chair of the committee Cllr Jim McKenna said: “This is interrupting our meeting, can security act please?”
Security then ushered the speaker towards the exit, but other members of the audience then started speaking.
Cllr McKenna then informed the room that the police had been called before councillors left the room.
The meeting was reconvened around 20 minutes later.
Extinction Rebellion member Katie Ritchie-Moulin is one of the campaigners to have chained themselves to the fence.
She told LeedsLive: "We've given the keys to councillors and we're waiting for them to come and unlock us.
"It was planned at a meeting. We had a discussion about things we could do to try and get the council to realise how serious this issue is. It's a really serious problem."
