It is astonishing that for the second time in less than three years we were treated to the sight of climate protesters scaling a chimney at Didcot Power Station.

This time, the protesters said they rode past security guards into the grounds of the power station on bicycles. Power station management said the guards were manhandled and overpowered.

Whatever the truth of those claims and counter-claims, there is no arguing that the council taxpayers of Oxfordshire are about to pick up a sizeable bill for this protest.

Within minutes of the action starting, 50 police officers were dispatched, along with the police helicopter. The operation to free the 11 activists who had chained themselves to the plant’s coal conveyor belt alone took five hours.

Police officers have better things to do with their time than to wait around for protesters to decide when they plan to come down.

We are surprised too that the owners of the power station, RWE npower, had not learned the lessons of the two-day protest in November 2006, which was said to have cost the company £690,000 by disrupting power generation.

We understand that the site is not an easy one to defend, but security needs to be upgraded urgently to prevent a repeat of this week’s events.