THIS summer 25 years ago one of the longest running environmental battles came to an end with the opening of the final section of the M3 through Twyford.

The construction of the missing link of the M3 had been hampered by the first major campaign involving eco-warriors. They had disrupted the building work, resulting in hundreds of arrests and delays to the scheme costing millions of pounds.

Toether with the famous struggle at Newbury the major road building programme of the 1990s was scrapped, although similar grand schemes are coming back to the table.

The campaign against the M3 had started in the 1970s when initial plans to build the road through the River Itchen water meadows at St Cross were abandoned. When the plans for a cutting through Twyford Down were approved a second legal campaign got into gear led by Merrick Denton Thompson, Barbara Bryant and the late David Croker.