Police spent over £3m and deployed over 1,000 officers from nearly every force in the country in order to arrest 24 climate activists, Novara Media can reveal.

In August 2024, as the country was gripped by far-right riots, cops swooped on activists planning to hold a mass protest camp near Drax – a power station in north Yorkshire accused of greenwashing.

Police stopped vehicles heading for the camp and made arrests for “public order offences relating to interference with key national infrastructure”. They seized equipment such as compost toilets, wheelchair access ramps and camping equipment.

The protest camp, organised by campaign group Reclaim the Power, was to involve “six days of workshops, communal living and direct action to crash Drax’s profits”. Following the arrests, the camp was cancelled.

150 environmental organisations signed a statement accusing the police of acting as “private security” for Drax, while activists said the sting showed the police had the wrong priorities.

A spokesperson for Reclaim the Power said: “In Yorkshire this morning, police prioritised locating and arresting people suspected of organising peaceful protest with tents, toilets and track for wheelchairs over locating and arresting people who are actually organising far-right riots.”

15 of those arrested face plea hearing at Leeds magistrates court on Thursday, charged with conspiracy to lock on. They deny the charges.

A freedom of information (FOI) request shared with Novara Media can now reveal the scale and cost of the operation.

1,070 officers were deployed during Operation Infusion – the codename for the operation. This includes 334 from North Yorkshire Police, 100 from Police Scotland and 57 from the Metropolitan Police. Officers from 39 police forces were involved in the operation – nearly every constabulary in the country.

North Yorkshire Police used contractors to provide accommodation, vehicle hire, hire of portaloos, carparking, skips and fencing. The names of the contractors were exempted from the FOI request. The total cost of the operation was £3,168,432.

Kevin Blowe, campaigns coordinator at the Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol), said: “The scale of the police operation shows how much money the police are willing to throw at shutting down a protest before it even takes place.”

In July 2024, Drax had secured an injunction which created a “buffer zone” against the threat of direct action protests around its north Yorkshire power plant. The plant has been a magnet for protesters for years, with previous protests against Drax infiltrated by undercover police officers.

Some of the arrests in August were made for conspiracy to “lock on” – when protesters attach themselves to people or buildings making it difficult to remove them. “Locking on” was specifically criminalised for the first time by the Public Order Act 2023, brought in by the Conservative government which cited “groups such as Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain” to justify its crackdown on protest.

Blowe said: “In 2024 there was a marked rise in the use of conspiracy charges to arrest campaigners for the newly introduced or expanded offences included in recent anti-protest legislation. Invariably this is because they were associated with groups targeted for ongoing police surveillance.”

Blowe is the author of a forthcoming report which claims that aggressive policing and the portrayal of protesters as threats to democracy has grown so routine and so severe that it amounts to state repression. He said: “Events at Drax last summer are one of the reasons why, for the first time, we are calling this state repression: measures to disproportionately deter, disrupt, punish or otherwise control protesters, campaign groups and entire social movements, with a total disregard for their human rights.”

A spokesperson for North Yorkshire Police said: “Whilst part of our role is to facilitate peaceful protest, we also have a responsibility to minimise disruption and prevent a breach of the peace.

“There is an ongoing court case relating to the operation in question, so it would be therefore inappropriate to comment further at this time.”

Drax used to be the UK’s biggest coal fired power station. It has transitioned to use what the company claims is “sustainable bioenergy”, but it has been found to burn wood from “old-growth” forests, pumping huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It has also been accused of “environmental racism” as its toxic wood processing plants are mostly based in poor communities of colour in the southern United States.

In February, the government extended subsidies for Drax until 2031 to the dismay of environmentalists and communities in the southern United States.

Simon Childs is a commissioning editor and reporter for Novara Media.