Activists take site for the Camp for Climate Action and reveal location

30 July 2008

Activists take site for the Camp for Cli­mate Action and reveal loca­tion

100 peo­ple entered and secured an uncul­ti­vat­ed field at Deans­gate Ridge at 3.00pm today, only 1 km from Kingsnorth Pow­er Sta­tion. They erect­ed and climbed tripods to pre­vent police from mov­ing them and have erect­ed a mar­quee along­side a ban­ner which reads ‘No New Coal’.

Although the cli­mate camp activists have been upfront and open about most aspects of their plans, the loca­tion of the camp had not been revealed until today in order to pre­vent E.ON and the police from attempt­ing to stop it from hap­pen­ing. The uncul­ti­vat­ed field is on a road that runs between Hoo St Wer­burgh and High Hal­stow. The Camp for Cli­mate Action intends to return the field in two weeks in as good, if not bet­ter, con­di­tion than it was found.

Around 20 sheep were in the field when it was occu­pied. They have been round­ed up and are being tak­en care of with food and water.

The camp, which is due to offi­cial­ly start on Sun­day, 3 August, is expect­ed to attract thou­sands of peo­ple com­ing from all over the UK. The week long camp hosts hun­dreds of work­shops on sus­tain­able liv­ing and the pol­i­tics of cli­mate change. The camp will cul­mi­nate on Sat­ur­day 9 August in a mass direct action to shut down Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion on protest over E.ON’s plans to build the first new coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in the UK for 33 years.

“We want to warm­ly invite peo­ple from the local com­mu­ni­ty to come down and see for them­selves what the camp is all about,” said Ter­ry Graves, who has already pitched his tent up in the field.

“E.ON and the gov­ern­ment believe that you can have end­less fos­sil-fuelled eco­nom­ic growth in a world of finite resources,” said Christi­na Greens­ford, who helped to secure the camp. “Peo­ple from all over the UK are here to cre­ate a demo­c­ra­t­ic, low-car­bon soci­ety in which our long term future on this plan­et is pri­ori­tised over the short term prof­it mar­gins of the fos­sil fuel indus­try.”

“We have a future to pro­tect, and today, in set­ting up the cli­mate camp, we’ve drawn a line in the sand at Kingsnorth.” said Han­nah Abbots. “We will not allow com­pa­nies like E.ON drag us over the edge of cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe.”

Press can con­tact Conor O’Brian at 07530 306267 who is on site and arrange inter­views, either over the phone or on the perime­ter of the site.

Press can also con­tact the media team, who are not cur­rent­ly on site, at 07772 861 099

A press advi­so­ry will be short­ly issued giv­ing infor­ma­tion as to when the first media tours of the camp will take place.

camp media team
press@climatecamp.org.uk
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

—

The OS grid ref­er­ence for the camp is TQ 773 742. The site is between Dean­gate round about on the A228 and the vil­lage of High Hal­stow. The site is on the west side of the road (left com­ing north from the A228) as you go up hill after the Dean­gate sports field and before Dux Court farm.

—

For direc­tions and oth­er use­ful info, see http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21137