Police spend £800k on protests at dog-breeding site

A police force has spent about £800,000 policing planned protests over the last five years outside a facility that breeds dogs for laboratory research.

Activists began demonstrating outside MBR Acres in Wyton, near Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, in 2021 to demand that the site be closed and the dogs inside be released.

Cambridgeshire Constabulary said its policing of planned protests at the facility was "impartial and proportionate".

Marshall Bio Resources (MBR), which runs the site, said it was "disappointed" to see the amount of money spent policing the protests.

A spokesperson for the protesters described the police response as "completely disproportionate to the nature of the protests".

Figures revealed by a Freedom of Information request show that Cambridgeshire Constabulary spent £797,656 on policing protests outside MBR in the last five years.

The force deployed 515 officers to protests at the site over 2025, at a cost of £159,834.

The year with the highest cost to the force was 2021, with an estimated cost of £334,970 spent on policing protests, although there were no records for the number of officers deployed to the site.

The figures only related to planned protest days and do not include police responding to break-ins at the site or the obstruction of vehicles leaving the facility.

Cambridgeshire Police confirmed with the BBC there was also a "small police presence" every time the dogs were transported from the site to laboratories for testing, which is not included in the estimated costs.

The force added that its response to the protests balanced "the right to protest with the right of staff at the site to go about their lawful work".

The activists deny that they have ever intercepted or blocked staff vehicles from entering or exiting the site.

MBR stated that whilst it recognised animal research was a "highly emotive issue", it remained a "key regulatory requirement in the development of medicines".

Ben Obese-Jecty, the Conservative MP for Huntingdon, said that these protests were an "enormous strain on police resources and funding," and money could have been better spent on additional neighbourhood officers.

Do you have a story suggestion for Cambridgeshire? Contact us below.

Follow Cambridgeshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.