Bridge protest at pollution

Press, 23 July 1986, Page 10

Bridge protest at pollution

By

ROBIN CHARTERIS

London correspondent An Auckland woman made her mark in unusual fashion in Bristol by dangling precariously on a rope 80 metres below the Clifton suspension bridge in a protest against pollution. Miss Lorraine Thorne, aged 25, was one of four members of Greenpeace who brought rush-hour traffic to a halt as they fixed a 16m-wide banner beneath the bridge near the mouth of the Avon River. The well planned operation took place soon after 6 a.m. Within 90 seconds the four protesters had attached lines to the 120-year-old bridge and scrambled over the side. The police were there within minutes but could do nothing to stop the unfurling and fixing of the banner. Miss Thorne and her three male companions from Sheffield then abseiled down their ropes into a waiting motor launch, trailing rainbowcoloured flares, and sped off. Their banner said: “Help Greenpeace clean

up our rivers.” It was an apparent reference to pollution of the neaby Severn estuary. A Greenpeace official, Mr George Pritchard, who named the four, said the group was trying to highlight the pollution industrialists were allegedly pouring into Britain’s rivers. “When Brunel built this bridge,” he said of the famous English engineer, Isambard Brunel, responsible for its construction in 1864, "he had rare plants in the locality moved to a place of safety. “Industrialists today should follow his example and consider the environment,” said Mr Pritchard. The protest came a few days after the Greenpeace pollution-survey vessel Beluga called at Bristol and issued a report condemning Severn pollution. Miss Thorne, who is living in Islington, London, was an experienced climber like the three men involved, Mr Pritchard said. Police say they will not lay charges against the four as no criminal offence was committed. The trustees of the privately owned toll bridge are taking legal advice.