Common Ground Community Garden — EVICTION UPDATE — Resistance successful so far.

Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den, is a self-man­aged squat­ted com­mu­ni­ty project in the heart of Read­ing. The land and sur­round­ing build­ings are coun­cil owned, and they have tried to obstruct this ini­tia­tive every step of the way — and thanks to the spir­it of the squat­ters and our neigh­bours, they have failed every step of the way.

Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den, is a self-man­aged squat­ted com­mu­ni­ty project in the heart of Read­ing. The land and sur­round­ing build­ings are coun­cil owned, and they have tried to obstruct this ini­tia­tive every step of the way — and thanks to the spir­it of the squat­ters and our neigh­bours, they have failed every step of the way.

Today, 20th June, is sup­posed to be evic­tion day. The day when the coun­cil takes back con­trol of our land, and is able to flog it off to the high­est bid­der, for devel­op­ment of yet more unnaford­able prison block flats. How­ev­er, so far, its not going accord­ing to their plan…

Bail­lifs showed up ear­ly this morn­ing, about 9am. How­ev­er, activists were all­ready busy bar­ri­cad­ing the build­ing that has been our home for the last 9 months and our beau­ti­full squat­ted gar­den. Reporters and tele­vi­sion cam­eras showed up, tak­ing inter­views from us and our neigh­bours (so if you are in the South­east or Thames Val­ley, check local news ser­vices out!). A mix­ture of activists and local neigh­bours are hold­ing a pick­et out the front of the build­ing, and oth­ers are sit­ting in the gar­den enjoy­ing the sun­shine! At this point bal­liffs have left, and we have won for now. But we are sure they will be back fair­ly soon with back­up, so any help is appre­ci­at­ed.

So long as the bail­lifs keep their dis­tance, the rest of the day will be enjoyed in the gar­den with a pic­nic and acoustic punk rock show lat­er.

EXISTANCE IS RESISTANCE!

P.S. Our sol­i­dar­i­ty greet­ings to Bre­con evic­tion resisters! FIGHT THE PIPE!

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01:07
Hi,

Just to give a last quick update, the bail­lifs stayed well away all day, and the rest of the day has been fan­tas­tic!

Quite a lot of local res­i­dents have been through dur­ing the day, telling us how much they love the gar­den, use it all the time etc etc.

Some res­i­dents have even showed a fair amount of inter­est in anti-cap­i­tal­ist/a­n­ar­chist pol­i­tics, includ­ing ex-Labour mem­bers who agreed all polit­i­cal par­ties are the same now and ‘this’ (i.e. direct-action, DIY etc like the gar­den) IS the alter­na­tive now, and a local cou­ple hav­ing trou­ble at work who are now inter­est­ed in join­ing IWW!

A cou­ple of local peo­ple were among those who stayed in the gar­den past evic­tion time, being pre­pared to face arrest to defend the gar­den.

This evening the day has been fin­ished off with a pub­lic BBQ and absolute­ly fan­tas­tic acoustic punk-rock show. Again, sev­er­al neigh­bours stuck around all night hav­ing a drink and enjoy­ing the music, and the tunes were amaz­ing. Big thanks to the artists who trav­elled down to play tonight for free!

Obvi­ous­ly, this project is most like­ly not going to last much longer (although you nev­er know and we’ll keep fight­ing!), but all our neigh­bours are say­ing they want the squat­ters to stay and do sim­i­lar things, and who are we to refuse!? 🙂

Spir­its are high,
LA LUCHA SIGUE!