ABSTRACT
This chapter describes earlier stages of the protest and continues the account of the protest, but specifically from the viewpoint and perspective of the protest groups themselves. The Federation, like many of the conservationist amenity societies, was rather anachronistic in outlook, and entirely opposed to change. The constitution added that it would take any ‘lawful’ action to promote the aims of the Council. The Council for the Protection of Rural England’ (CPRE) was, it asserted, ‘an entirely independent organisation’, which was ‘not subsidised by Government and thus retains the freedom necessary for effective criticism’, and which ‘maintains a small, expert staff in London’ who monitor Government proposals, legislation and debates in Parliament. The Hertfordshire Society for its part intervened in the 1973 proposals by calling a meeting in Stevenage, open to the public, to see what kind of opposition there was to expansion.
