Radley Lake: The destruction begins — updates

15.02.2007

The Oxford Mail report­ed last night that a pro­test­er has been arrest­ed at the Radley Lakes site after work­ers start­ed prepar­ing the area for the con­tro­ver­sial dump­ing of pow­er sta­tion ash.

“The Ant” as the man is know, had set up camp out­side the Thrupp Lake. He went into the area owned by RWE npow­er after work­men began clear­ing trees today and was arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass.

http://www.saveradleylakes.org.uk

««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««
Radley Lat­est

17.02.2007
Work has begun in earnest now, with most of the trees on the islands cut down.
NPow­er’s law­ers have also issued an injunc­tion, served on 6 named indi­vid­u­als, plus any­one else they can man­age to serve one on down there, pret­ty much cur­tail­ing most of your civ­il lib­er­ties in that area.
This includes tak­ing phot­graphs of “pro­tect­ed indi­vid­u­als” (guys with chain­saws and secu­ri­ty guards), set­ting up any camp with­in a half mile radius of the lake, car­ry­ing equip­ment that could be used to set up tripods, or spike trees, protest­ing with­in 5 yards of a “pro­tect­ed indi­vid­ual”…
Appar­ent­ly, the secu­ri­ty guards were feel­ing har­rased.
So- care­ful not to breath too heav­i­ly either- you might end up get­ting nicked for that too.
So far 3 peo­ple have been arrest­ed in the lat­est wave of the protest- 1 in breach of the injunc­tion (for dar­ing to take pho­tos on a pub­lic high­way!).
Camps will be demol­ished after 6 hours, and Camp Kylie, pre­vi­ous­ly home to “The Ant” was demol­ished in the wee small hours of the morn­ing (no arrests, as there were no longer any occu­pants, as they’d all been nicked!)

Sug­gest­ed action- go down there, bear wit­ness, and I leave it up to you as to whether or not you take any notice of this injunc­tion.
I did­n’t!

««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««
back­ground & update

RWE NPow­er have gone to great expense to try and gag the local press, TV and
even Radio, to pre­vent the news get­ting out there that they are trash­ing
Thrupp Lake and cut­ting down hun­dreds of trees, caus­ing dis­tress to the
nest­ing birds and caus­ing pain to the local res­i­dents who have made an
appli­ca­tion to have the place classed as a Town Green.

It all start­ed when NPow­er evict­ed a group of peo­ple who decid­ed to occu­py
the house called San­dles which had remained unoc­cu­pied for 18 months. They
went in on the 6th Feb with a team of thug­gish indi­vid­u­als with faces hid by
bal­a­clavas and sledge­ham­mered their way through a plate glass win­dow to gain
access to the house. Two girls sleep­ing next to the win­dow were trau­ma­tised
and lucky not to have been injured by the fly­ing shards of glass.

After they had evict­ed the occu­pants, the secu­ri­ty guards, still with their
bal­a­clavas decid­ed to film any­one and every­one who came near the lakes.
Film­ing vehi­cle reg­is­tra­tion num­bers and eaves­drop­ping on con­ver­sa­tions,
they were car­ry­ing out their patrols with gus­to, dis­turb­ing the wildlife all
through the night dur­ing their reg­u­lar pass­es and being intim­i­dat­ing to
peo­ple who were vis­it­ing the area.

A young man called Ant decid­ed on evic­tion to do a vig­il out­side the house.
First of all for two days he sat on a chair. Then some­one gave him a tent
and brought him some pro­vi­sions. It seemed an act of kind­ness for some­one
who felt that a protest had to be made. How­ev­er, the con­tin­ued stream of
peo­ple who sup­port­ed Ant seemed to aggra­vate the NPOWER GOONS and soon
NPow­er obtained some sort of Court Order to stop any­one camp­ing near their
prop­er­ty, car­ry­ing a rope or spike with­in a mile of the site, pho­tograph­ing
their work­men and secu­ri­ty guards, and demand­ing that the peo­ple against who
the injunc­tion was served should send a copy of the injunc­tion which they
had received to every­one who sup­port­ed the Cam­paign to Save the Lakes.

One of the peo­ple named on the injunc­tion is a retired sci­en­tist who is
extreme­ly law abid­ing and is at a loss to under­stand why his name should
appear on this paper­work. He did have an alter­ca­tion with a Secu­ri­ty Guard
who refused to let him pass down Thrupp Lane BOAT (Byway open to all
Traf­fic) say­ing it was a ByWay and he could­n’t dri­ve his vehi­cle down it.

Any­one who vis­its the lakes is like­ly to be fol­lowed round by a pair of
burly secu­ri­ty guards who are look­ing for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to have a
con­fronta­tion. Some­one vis­it­ed this morn­ing and report­ed his path barred by
three secu­ri­ty men from NPow­er, threat­en­ing that if he tried to go past
them, he was in breach of the “injunc­tion” and they would have him arrest­ed
because no one is allowed with­in 5 feet of a Secu­ri­ty Guard or NPow­er’s
prop­er­ty.