Drax walks

This one-year project consisted of 12 walks – one per month. Each walk was approximately 10km and my intention was to walk in a circuit around the site of Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire. The power station has been a focus of environmental protest. A high court injunction against any groups coming close to the site was in place during my first walk on 24 July 2025, meaning I had to walk alone or risk being arrested. So, the walks were conducted as a solo project. 

The walks were on public rights of way, footpaths and roads, some of which are next to the perimeter fence. These rights of way are contested (the recent injunction) and closely monitored (numerous CCTV cameras). One footpath, that runs along the back of the power station, was repeated closed (officially and unofficially) which meant some walks had to be re-routed. On some occasions, it was open, but flooded. 

I felt extremely vulnerable and subject to scrutiny by the multiple security cameras in operation. In order to confront this feeling, I decided that at some point during each walk, I would sit down near the fence and do a small pencil drawing of one of the cameras. This was an act of looking back. My drawings are sometimes shaky, depending how I was feeling. They are affected by the weather (heat, frost, rain), and register my bodily experience of being in that specific situation. They are in contrast to the heavy, de-personalised surveillance enacted by Drax, as both an immense industrial site and a global corporation with international reach.

On more than one occasion, I was approached by Drax security guards, asking who I was, what I was doing and why I was there. Once they called police to speak to me. Afterwards, I was followed for the rest of the walk by a security vehicle. I was not acting illegally. Sitting on the grass at the side of a public road and drawing is not a crime. We established that. My approach was to be conspicuously powerless and unthreatening, and yet it caused some concern. ‘You’ve ruffled a few feathers’ was the phrase used by North Yorkshire police.

Standing on the flatlands between the river Aire and the river Ouse, Drax Power Station dominates the agricultural land around it like some kind of gigantic fortification. It consists of multiple structures: immense halls, towers, chimneys, train tracks and sheds, linked by a network of bridges and conveyer belts, sprawling for over a mile. But it is not its occupation of territory that angers environmental activists and campaigners. It is the fact that since transitioning away from coal, it now burns wood pellets - millions of tonnes per year – mostly shipped from the other side of the world (USA and Canada). Burning wood in this way produces more carbon emissions than burning coal, and causes deforestation. 

Environmental groups in the US South have shown that Drax is depleting forests in areas that are already over-logged. Also, the production of wood pellets causes air pollution and noise. Residents in communities such as Gloster, Mississippi have experienced serious health issues since Drax’s pellet plant has operated next to their homes. Drax has received repeated fines for air pollution violations, but it can offset these from its huge profits.