Squatters Illegally Evicted From Abandoned Pub in Cheltenham

On July 17th at 14.00 squat­ters were ille­gal­ly evict­ed from the Duke of York Inn, 315–317 Lon­don Road, Chel­tenham, GL52 6YY.

The squat­ters had gained entry on the 15th July through an open win­dow after being informed by local res­i­dents that the pub was acces­si­ble with­out caus­ing any dam­age.

On July 17th at 14.00 squat­ters were ille­gal­ly evict­ed from the Duke of York Inn, 315–317 Lon­don Road, Chel­tenham, GL52 6YY.

The squat­ters had gained entry on the 15th July through an open win­dow after being informed by local res­i­dents that the pub was acces­si­ble with­out caus­ing any dam­age.

They spent the next two days secur­ing the squat, clean­ing filth from the pub area, repair­ing fix­tures, fur­ni­ture and fit­tings and repair­ing dam­age caused by van­dals includ­ing clean­ing graf­fi­ti from the walls. The inten­tion of the squat­ters was to turn the pub into a com­mu­ni­ty arts cen­tre, pro­vid­ing space for local peo­ple to meet, con­verse and express them­selves freely.

How­ev­er, after assumed­ly being informed by the police that the pub was being occu­pied, local prop­er­ty devel­op­er James Dea­con decid­ed to send some of his work­ers in, armed with sledge­ham­mers and a chain­saw. They began to forcibly gain access to the prop­er­ty using the afore­men­tioned tools. Due to the noise the squat­ters became aware of what was hap­pen­ing and tried to vacate the prop­er­ty. Their escape was ham­pered by the work­ers then using the tools to threat­en the squat­ters, includ­ing a 19 year old girl who was backed into a cor­ner with the run­ning chain­saw, despite assur­ances that they were leav­ing.

After the squat­ters left the prop­er­ty they were then fol­lowed around the local area by Mr Deacon’s work­ers in vans, forc­ing them to beg for sanc­tu­ary in the homes of local res­i­dents, even­tu­al­ly escap­ing in the car of a local “good Samar­i­tan” who was chased by the work­ers in vans for four miles before final­ly los­ing their pur­suers.

Mr Dea­con wants to con­vert the prop­er­ty into three hous­es and sev­en new flats, adding to con­ges­tion and over­crowd­ing in the area, a project which has raised many objec­tion s from local res­i­dents. To reg­is­ter your objec­tions you can email Chel­tenham Bor­ough coun­cil at builtenvironment@cheltenham.gov.uk .