Insulate Britain protesters block busy Birmingham city centre road
Climate protesters have brought disruption to one of Birmingham city centre's busiest roads.
Activists from Insulate Britain holding banners sat in the road on the A4400 inner ring road at Paradise Circus intermittently throughout Tuesday morning and for around an hour in the afternoon.
They were moved on by 11am before returning at around 1pm, West Midlands Police said.
They were then spoken to again and left the area at around 2pm, with traffic reported to be flowing freely again.
Nobody has been arrested.
The protests are part of coordinated Insulate Britain action taking place in the West Midlands, Manchester and London.
Motorists honked horns and were seen arguing with the demonstrators as they blocked traffic on Great Charles Street.
A West Midlands Police spokesman said: "Following our earlier update, the activists have now left the scene and dispersed.
"Around 20 people briefly and intermittently blocked traffic at Great Charles Street for around an hour at around 9am and caused minimal disruption.
"They have now dispersed peacefully, but our officers are continuing to monitor the situation and will remain in the city centre.
"No arrests have been made. We'd like to thank people for their patience."
Insulate Britain said that around 60 demonstrators descended on Birmingham, Junction 23 of the M25 near London and Junction 6 of the M56 in Manchester.
Mary Smail, from Ashbourne in Derbyshire, was among those protesting in Birmingham.
She told the BBC: "There's so many people in fuel poverty. This is the fifth richest nation in the world and tens of thousands of people dread every winter because they can't afford to keep warm."
"It's not nice being verbally and physically abused but people must understand that a few minutes' wait is a very minor inconvenience compared to the hardships that are to come."
The London and Manchester roads are part of the strategic road network and covered by a super injunction granted to National Highways last week.
Around 20 demonstrators arrived at the M25 but were stopped by police from getting into the road at about 8am. Six sat on the pavement with a banner, and some glued themselves to the ground.
Insulate Britain posted on Twitter: "We are taking our message to people outside of London because we want everyone to know that our government is killing our children.”
Nine demonstrators have received committal papers in relation to an injunction granted to National Highways to curb activist roadblocks, an Insulate Britain spokesperson confirmed.
So far, 161 people have been involved in the roadblock campaign and there have been 770 arrests, excluding Tuesday's action.
