Traffic was brought to a standstill in the heart of Totnes and several shops closed for the day when protesters against vaccine passports marched through the town centre on Saturday.

Hundreds gathered at the Rotherfold at midday demanding NHS Covid passes be abolished, along with Covid vaccinations for children.

The demonstration, part of a World Wide Demo of more than 155 cities, ended at Longmarsh.

Totnes Mayor, Cllr Ben Piper, said activists were bussed into the town and that only a ‘tiny minority’ of residents were involved.

Cllr Piper said: “I’m so glad that, despite the deliberate decision of the organisers to choose the busiest day of the week to occupy the town centre, Totnesians reacted with a mature, tolerant attitude and let the five-plus coach loads of activists join with a handful of locals to drift down the high street - fortunately without causing too much disruption to townspeople and the market stallholders and shop traders livelihoods.

“Although anti-fascist organisations wisely chose to stay away and a very professional low-key, non-confrontational approach was taken by our local police, bystanders were still aggressively heckled for wearing masks and some businesses stayed closed for the day.

“A rather dismal cohort of people carrying tacky generic placards got as far as Longmarsh where local dog walkers were astonished to find, in Totnes, a speaker trying to persuade the assembled that ‘climate warming is a hoax’, perpetrated by errr….them?

“I was sorry to be unwell (and under Covid isolation mandate as one of my grand-kids tested positive) so had to observe from a distance and not take the opportunity to debate with any of the speakers - although judging by the heckling in the street, hysterical coverage online and, actually, only the one sinister phone call from a stranger out of the blue, I suspect that it wouldn’t have been a very fair platform. 

“Above everything else I think this march clearly demonstrated that far from being a ‘quiet majority’ (where did we hear that before?) this action only represented a tiny minority in our town, where the actual vast majority choose to respect fundamental scientific and historical basics as part of a wholistic approach to a healthy communities wellbeing.”

The rally was due to have ended in a so-called ‘truth festival’ at Longmarsh which was to feature speakers including conspiracy theorist Gareth Icke, but the organisers failed to apply for the relevant permission from South Hams Council which owns the site.

New World Alliance, the group behind the festival, were banned by Totnes Town Council and the Paige Adams Trust from holding the conference at Totnes Civic Hall.

Attempts to hold the event at a hotel Torquay were also vetoed by the UK Health Security Agency.

Dr Stephen Hopwood, who heads the New World Alliance, said the conference took place at a private venue in Totnes.