Call-out for support: Mainshill Solidarity Camp eviction granted!

Come resist Scot­tish Coal and Lord Home, and defend com­mu­ni­ties and the cli­mate!

In a far­ci­cal court hear­ing this morn­ing in Lanark Sher­iff Court the evic­tion order brought by Lord Home, the landown­er (and chief exec of RBS pri­vate bank­ing firm) and Scot­tish Coal, the UK’s largest open cast pro­duc­er against the occu­piers at Main­shill Wood was grant­ed. Despite hav­ing just two work­ing days to seek legal advice and work on a defence the Sher­iff refused to allow the occu­piers more time.

The evic­tion order comes into effect imme­di­ate­ly owing to the “vast costs being incurred” by the con­tract drilling work being pre­vent­ed at the site by campers, accord­ing to Lord Home­’s solic­i­tors.

The Chair­per­son of Dou­glas and Gle­spin Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil had pre­pared a state­ment to present to the court in sup­port of the occu­piers and rais­ing seri­ous con­cerns about the timescale of the evic­tion order. The Sher­iff, how­ev­er, would not even allow the state­ment to be heard, say­ing only: “Giv­en that you’re a lay per­son, I’ll cast my eyes over it”.

Tracey Mitchell from Dou­glas said of the pro­ceed­ings: “It was damned ridicu­lous and mon­ey talks”. John Brozy, a for­mer min­er and for­mer jus­tice of the peace also from Dou­glas said: “the occu­piers have giv­en us new heart and made locals under­stand that they’re not alone”.

The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is deter­mined to stop this coal mine from going ahead. We knew all along that this would be Lord Home­’s response – not engag­ing with us or the com­mu­ni­ty, but using his mon­ey and court bailiffs to remove us with­out get­ting his hands dirty. We will not go until we are force­ful­ly removed or until we have won.

Scot­tish Coal and Lord Home are on the back foot – the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has brought a huge amount of atten­tion to what they’re doing in South Lanark­shire, and what they’ve been get­ting way with for years. The com­mu­ni­ty is fired up and even more deter­mined to stop this project. We can win this! The last thing Scot­tish Coal and Lord Home need is an expen­sive and drawn-out evic­tion – what we need is for as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to join us and come to the camp.

The site is beau­ti­ful, full of wildlife and well defend­ed, with unprece­dent­ed lev­els of com­mu­ni­ty sup­port. This is the front line in the strug­gle against new coal and for com­mu­ni­ty self-deter­mi­na­tion over the inter­ests of big busi­ness and wealthy land own­ers.

Join us! See http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk for infor­ma­tion about the camp and how to get here, and http://coalactionedinburgh.noflag.org.uk/ for reg­u­lar updates.