Ten people were arrested in Cardiff on Saturday 21st August, as the police clamped down heavily on an attempt to stage a reclaim the streets party.

The party mood of the 150 or so people gathered at the meeting point was jovial as they moved off led by Anarcho Folkies ‘Kiln@boy’ entertaining the crowd with their own brand of rebel music. The mood soon changed after walking only a hundred yards as the police made it perfectly clear they were not going to allow any roads to be blocked.

Scuffles broke out within minutes and two people were arrested and forced into the back of police vans for looking like they might cause trouble. They were later released without charge.

After standing toe to toe with police for a few minutes it was clear that the protesters were not going to be able to walk out of town to the prearranged secret party location, so a call went out to the sound system van to come to the protestors. When the van arrived, it hardly had time to put the handbrake on before it’s windows were smashed by the police and the occupants dragged out and bundled into the back of the van with the two others previously arrested.

Chaos ruled for a few minutes, and several people needed treatment from paramedics as a result of the actions of the forces of law and order. The crowd then turned around and started to move back into the town centre, completely catching the police off guard, forcing them to run to get in front of the crowd. As the crowd reached the other end of the pedestrianised Queen Street, outside the castle, the police formed a line to prevent anyone getting on to the road. After more scuffles and arrests, the crowd moved down into the pedestrianised Hayes area of the city to the bemusement of the gathered shoppers out for a quiet afternoon of consumerism. After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing about 30 people split off from the main body and managed to bring St Mary Street to a standstill for 10 minutes before getting chased back to join the main body of the crowd.

Back at the Hayes the police started to form a ‘bubble’ around the crowd, then an orderly move on to Bute Park, adjacent to the castle, was negotiated and the day ended with everyone enjoying the sun, listening to an acoustic set from ‘Kiln@Boy’, while 40 or so riot police eating ice cream watched on. The police even offered to remove some of the ‘local lads’ who might have disrupted the party. Bless ‘em.

At the end of the day, the planned disruption to a busy road junction just outside the city centre came no-where near being achieved, but ironically the police tactics (or lack of tactics) led to widespread disruption throughout the centre of Cardiff.