People Power 1: We Saved Druridge Bay

On 9 November 2023 I was in Druridge Bay with my daughter, looking north from the height of the dunes at Cresswell.  The sun shone brightly, picking out the white of the wind turbines near Widdrington.  We commented to each other that if it hadn't been for the Druridge Bay Campaign we could have been looking out over the dome and buildings of nuclear power stations.  Our decade-long campaign reached its climax on 9 November 1989, memorable because it was also the day of the collapse of the Berlin Wall.  On that day, the government finally announced that they would halt the nuclear programme, albeit temporarily, and Druridge Bay was no longer under threat.

Hooray, and time for celebrations.  Soon after that, Druridge Bay Campaigners agreed that the next steps were a) to get back the land which the Central Electricity Generating Board had purchased and drilled for up to three nuclear power stations, and b) to stop RMC (Ready Mixed Concrete) from shovelling up lorry-loads of sand from the beach and taking it away.  We succeeded.  In December 1996, we had a double celebration – Hooray again.

Children and families enjoying the wonderful curving beach these days may not realise what might have happened, although a sneaky bit of sand extraction still seems to take place.  There are two tiny plaques, one on the bridge over Blakemoor Burn and another on a wall near the entrance to the National Trust site.  They are all that remain of our dynamic environmental campaigns.  We were the people who saved Druridge Bay.

Bridget Gubbins (guest contributor)

Having worked for the Druridge Bay Campaign, Bridget wrote two books which tell the stories, Generating Pressure, 1991, and Power at Bay, 1997, Earthright Publications.  They are out of print but available in local libraries and through second-hand outlets.