Anti-road campaigners peacefully resisting camp evictions (16 Jan)

The evic­tion of the two remain­ing camps (“Base camp” and “Decoy Pond Wood” – see here and below for maps) has begun, and cam­paign­ers are resist­ing peace­ful­ly in tree­hous­es and tun

The evic­tion of the two remain­ing camps (“Base camp” and “Decoy Pond Wood” – see here and below for maps) has begun, and cam­paign­ers are resist­ing peace­ful­ly in tree­hous­es and tun­nels. Please protest, sup­port and pub­li­cise!

Bailiffs arrived just before 8am, and the evic­tion prop­er began around 8.15am. As at 8.37am there were 30+ bailiffs on site with more secu­ri­ty arriv­ing, focussing main­ly on the tunnel(s). As at 8.59am it was no longer pos­si­ble to access the camp via the access road to Adam’s farm (though oth­er cross-coun­try routes may still be avail­able), and Har­ris fenc­ing was being brought in.

Please note: This is only the end of the begin­ning for the protests against the Bex­hill Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR)! We urgent­ly need to replen­ish our finances fol­low­ing the last month of protests, so please con­sid­er giv­ing a dona­tion, using the “donate” but­ton on our web-site and Face­book page, if you are able.

 

Press release Combe Haven Defend­ers [1]
Wednes­day 16 Jan­u­ary
Con­tact 07926 423 033

EVICTION OF ANTI-ROAD CAMP NEAR HASTINGS HAS STARTED
Pro­tes­tors resist­ing peace­ful­ly in tree­hous­es and tun­nels

Wednes­day 16 Jan­u­ary, 8.16am: Oppo­nents of the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) are defend­ing trees and  occu­py­ing tun­nels at their main protest camp in Crowhurst. Secu­ri­ty guards and bailiffs, sup­port­ed by police, began attempts to evict the camp at 8am today.

The main camp, which has been in place since 21 Decem­ber, is locat­ed on the pro­posed route of the BHLR close to Adam’s Farm, Crowhurst [2]. Fur­ther trees on route are occu­pied by pro­tes­tors at near­by “Decoy Camp”.

The peace­ful protests against the road– which have now been run­ning for a month, with 12 arrests – have seized nation­al atten­tion over the past week [3].

Tree-felling work for the road start­ed on 14 Decem­ber 2012 and rep­re­sents the first sig­nif­i­cant work on the high­ly-con­tro­ver­sial £100m road, one of over forty “zom­bie roads” that were declared dead years ago but have now been resus­ci­tat­ed as part of as part of Britain’s largest road-build­ing pro­gramme in 25 years [4, 5].

Con­tact 07926 423 033

NOTES
[1] http://www.combehavendefenders.org.uk
[2] Near­by post­code TN33 9AY. For map see http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/camp-groundrules-directions/
[3] http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/recent-media-coverage/
[4] See ‘Con­tro­ver­sial ‘zom­bie roads’ scheme to be resus­ci­tat­ed’, Guardian, 10 Octo­ber 2012, http://tinyurl.com/zombieroads
[5] http://bettertransport.org.uk/media/26-Oct-roads-report