Human chain demo over power plant

The protesters gathered about half an hour's walk from the power station

Environmental protesters have joined hands to form a human chain around a power station in Kent.

Hundreds of demonstrators converged at Kingsnorth at Hoo to draw attention to plans to build a new coal-fired power station on the site.

The "Mili-band" protest was a call for climate and energy secretary Ed Miliband to reject the scheme.

Energy company E.ON says the new power station would be 20% cleaner than the existing plant at the Kingsnorth site.

The human chain was the latest in a series of protests since plans for the new plant were announced in October 2006.

Last August climate change protesters held a week-long camp at the site.

'Step backwards'

On Saturday, people from a coalition of environmental organisations and others, including Oxfam, the World Development Movement (WDM), People and Planet, the National Federation of Women's Institutes, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and the Woodcraft Folk attended the protest.

They say that E.ON's plans to create the first new coal-fired power plant in Britain for over 20 years would be a step backwards in the UK's commitment to fight climate change.

E.ON says that if the £1bn development at Kingsnorth is approved, the two units will use the latest technology to produce power from coal more efficiently and leanly than ever before in the UK.

The units would produce enough electricity to supply around 1.5m homes.