BEFORE 1976 there was a reluctant but passive acceptance that the Government could build roads anywhere it chose. In the heat of that summer, this principle was noisily and spectacularly denied.
At a packed Winchester Guildhall, locals refused, by constant interruption, to allow an inspector to open the inquiry until he agreed properly to examine the need for the M3, planned to go through water meadows close to the historic core of the city.
After two days of police evictions (including that of Winchester College’s headmaster) the inspector agreed to widen the inquiry’s remit. One man who played a prominent part in this drama was David Croker, an executive for IBM whose quiet but determined voice punctuated the uproar.
Incredibly, the inquiry did not rubber-stamp the scheme and the Government had to come back with a very different but equally monstrous idea — this time cutting through the neighbouring Twyford Down. Campaigners naturally turned to Croker to rally new support.
After the scheme’s approval at the 1987 inquiry, Croker undertook High Court and European challenges, and commissioned engineering experts to propose tunnel alternatives.
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He showed his remarkable independence of spirit. Twyford Down was a Tory road, part of Margaret Thatcher’s “great car economy”. Croker was a Conservative councillor in Winchester, yet it was largely his influence that brought about the change of heart in Winchester City Council, which hitherto had supported government road schemes. He was principal in the campaign to get voters in Winchester, Eastleigh and Southampton to vote against Tory candidates, a tactic that helped to elect John Denham for Labour in Southampton at the expense of Christopher Chope, then the Transport Minister.
Croker initiated contact with the Earth First! activists and was instrumental in bringing them to Winchester for the first action to impede the demolition of railway bridges. But when all legal avenues had been exhausted, the Twyford Down Association wound up and respectable Winchester largely withdrew from the fray. Unlike some, Croker was happy for the torch to be taken up by new radical groups. He was always available to them for reasoned opinion.
He retained an active interest in environmental matters in Winchester, attending a consultative exhibition of a proposed city centre development only days before he died.
He is survived by his wife, Fleur, and by four children.
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David Croker, businessman and roads protester, was born on April 18, 1932. He died on July 2, 2006, aged 74.