Update: We’ve just received our eviction notice. The bailiffs are due around at 11am on this Wednesday, the 16th December. We desperately need people to help with resisting the eviction, either to be in the house and be difficult to remove, or to film the bailiffs to ensure compliance with the law, or to protest in solidarity outside. This being Bath’s only autonomous social space, it’s important for us to send a message to the authorities and landowners that they can’t just sweep us aside.
After a really successful few months, the owners have decided to try and evict the Black Cat social centre — but the occupiers have decided not to go quietly. In the 3 months that it has been operating, the black cat has been home to dance classes, open days, a library, a cafe, film nights, a freeshop, a massive benefit gig raising hundreds for local causes and more — we are not going to let that go to waste because of corporate greed.
We desperately need people to help with resisting the eviction, either to be in the house and be difficult to remove, or to film the bailiffs to ensure compliance with the law, or to protest in solidarity outside. This being Bath’s only autonomous social space, it’s important for us to send a message to the authorities and landowners that they can’t just sweep us aside.
The Social Centre Collective can be contacted at BathSocialCentre@Googlemail.com, or on 07794 774 938
We are planning a peaceful solidarity demo outside the building, as well as resistance inside. We have almost unlimited crash space, so come on down and help save a space that has become valued by local residents, activists or otherwise.
You can find us at -
The Black Cat Centre
7–10 Kelso Place, upper bristol rd, Bath
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9.12.2009
The Black Cat, Bath’s only autonomous social space, has lost an extended court battle against Cabot Investments, and is due to be evicted in the near future.
Being committed to fighting the current system of land ownership by any means we can, the Social Centre collective are hoping to get together the numbers and expertise to resist the eviction for a while. If we can hold them off for a week, we reckon their sale to a housing development company will fall through! And if we hold them off for two weeks, Cabot will probably go bust! Even though we probably won’t keep the building indefinitely, this is a great opportunity to flex the muscles of community power and send a clear message of “leave us alone” to the property-owning classes of bath.
The current building is a fantastic space, with pretty much unlimited crash space available — although if you bring your own bedding it’ll help us accommodate more people — and only fifteen minutes walk from the town centre of Bath, where you can enjoy the traditional Bathonian pursuits of gawking at pigeons and despising the tourists.
The Black Cat itself has gained alot of community support, with several neighbours dropping by most days to express support and ask questions. We’ve had a fantastic benefit gig to raise money for the Postal Strike and the Bath Bomb (Bath’s best radical freesheet), with more in the pipeline, and we also provide a home to the Bath Freeshop and Radical Lending Library.
We’re currently waiting for a date for eviction, and will send out another callout when we get one. If we can get half a dozen more people here after that then we can resist — and of course if we get more, we can resist more! So come on down; it’ll be way more fun than your mates are having in Copenhagen…
The Black Cat Collective
http://blackcatcentre.blogspot.com/
7–10 Kelso Place, Upper Bristol Road, Bath (BA1 3AU)