Common Ground — Squated Community Garden Still Growing, Still Resisting!

2nd Evic­tion Attempt Resist­ed, Injunc­tion Bro­ken Again, New Gar­dens on the Hori­zon!

Com­mon Ground — a squat­ted com­mu­ni­ty gar­den in Kates­grove, Read­ing — is still being enjoyed by the com­mu­ni­ty and still grow­ing, despite a 2nd attempt by the coun­cil to close the gar­den down and evict the gar­den­ers.

2nd Evic­tion Attempt Resist­ed, Injunc­tion Bro­ken Again, New Gar­dens on the Hori­zon!

Com­mon Ground — a squat­ted com­mu­ni­ty gar­den in Kates­grove, Read­ing — is still being enjoyed by the com­mu­ni­ty and still grow­ing, despite a 2nd attempt by the coun­cil to close the gar­den down and evict the gar­den­ers.

The coun­cil owned land, which backs onto sev­er­al derelict build­ings, was occu­pied by near­by squat­ters and local activists in Jan­u­ary this year. They spent four months trans­form­ing a rub­bish strewn junk­yard into a beau­ti­ful gar­den, rely­ing on recy­cling, dona­tions and self-organ­i­sa­tion to get the job done.

On May 19th the gar­den was opened to the com­mu­ni­ty, despite the Coun­cil obtain­ing an injunc­tion mak­ing the open­ing BBQ and acoustic music gig ille­gal. Near­ly 200 peo­ple came through the gar­den, and all were amazed at the dif­fer­ence. Since then, locals have been using the gar­den reg­u­lar­ly to relax and eat lunch in, or take the chil­dren to the play area.

In June, the Coun­cil obtained an pos­s­e­sion order for the squat­ters home and Com­mon Ground. On 20th June, despite leav­ing their home, the squat­ters, gar­den­ers, activists and local res­i­dents teamed up to resist the evic­tion of the gar­den, with a few res­i­dents being pre­pared to break the law to con­tin­ue occu­py­ing the land. Coun­cil officials/bailiffs showed up, and pret­ty quick­ly retreat­ed, leav­ing every­body to enjoy anoth­er par­ty.

In the last few weeks, the Coun­cil have unsuc­cess­ful­ly attempt­ed a sec­ond evic­tion. In late July, once again gar­den­ers, neigh­bours and activists mobilised to defend the gar­den from evic­tion, once again defy­ing the law and once again see­ing Coun­cil offi­cials retreat­ing emp­ty hand­ed. And last Sun­day, despite intim­i­da­tion as the Coun­cil threat­ened unnamed organ­is­ers with jail, sev­er­al peo­ple enjoyed a com­mu­ni­ty pic­nic and arts day in the gar­den, cre­at­ing a brand new moza­ic path­way.

Main­tain­ing the occu­pa­tion of the land is not the only suc­cess of Com­mon Ground. In a bad­ly thought out attempt to move the occu­piers, the Coun­cil offered two alter­na­tive sites. How­ev­er, when the gar­den­ers refused them, the Coun­cil were oblig­at­ed to offer them to the local res­i­dents asso­ci­a­tion. Indi­vid­u­als involved in Com­mon Ground have met with the res­i­dents asso­ci­a­tion, and it is like­ly they will help the res­i­dents to cre­ate a sec­ond and pos­si­bly third com­mu­ni­ty gar­den for the area, this time legal­ly. Direct-action gets the goods!

Even bet­ter, Com­mon Ground is appar­ent­ly inspir­ing oth­ers to take direct-action to improve their neigh­bour­hoods. On the oth­er side of a Read­ing, a lady who had been refused per­mis­sion from her hous­ing asso­ci­a­tion to cre­ate a com­mu­ni­ty gar­den on some of their derelict land, has told peo­ple involved in Com­mon Ground that she has now been inspired to go ahead and do it any­way! Nat­u­ral­ly, some Com­mon Ground gar­den­ers will offer advice and assis­tance with this new project.

Com­mon Ground is locat­ed through the alley­way, next to the ex-Wom­ens Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre in Sil­ver Street, Kates­grove, Read­ing, 10 min­utes from the train sta­tion. Please email katesgrovegarden(AT)yahoo.co.uk for more infor­ma­tion.

Resis­tance is fer­tile!

katesgrovegarden(AT)yahoo.co.uk