Cambridge Social Centre — evicted & more info

18th July 2009
Last night a large num­ber of police with sev­er­al vehi­cles, riot gear, and dogs evict­ed the new­ly opened social cen­tre, on the pre­text of fire safe­ty. There were no arrests. The pub­lic meet­ing called for tonight will go ahead in a reduced for­mat out­side the bin­go hall.

18th July 2009
Last night a large num­ber of police with sev­er­al vehi­cles, riot gear, and dogs evict­ed the new­ly opened social cen­tre, on the pre­text of fire safe­ty. There were no arrests. The pub­lic meet­ing called for tonight will go ahead in a reduced for­mat out­side the bin­go hall.

Last night the 20 occu­pants of the old bin­go hall were evict­ed by around 50 police includ­ing tac­ti­cal units with riot gear, under the pre­text of fire reg­u­la­tions. Iron­i­cal­ly, the police inter­rupt­ed a meet­ing that had just secured 5 fire extin­guish­ers and was dis­cussing the open­ing up of the remain­ing fire exits in prepa­ra­tion for the planned pub­lic launch tomor­row.

The police ini­tial­ly said that they would not take action on the squat­ted build­ing, as squat­ting is a civ­il mat­ter between occu­pants and build­ing own­er. How­ev­er, the squat­ters gained a high­er pro­file through local media and out­reach work, pro­mot­ing anti-cap­i­tal­ism and social change, and organ­is­ing a pub­lic meet­ing and music event that was antic­i­pat­ed to draw large num­bers of peo­ple. Fol­low­ing this, the police threat­ened the occu­piers over two days, and final­ly moved to pro­tect prop­er­ty and the sta­tus quo, using any pos­si­ble excuse.

The fire offi­cer who accom­pa­nied the police said that the occu­piers would have to imme­di­ate­ly remove the met­al grills cov­er­ing fire doors to make the build­ing safe. This was planned for the fol­low­ing morn­ing, and the occu­piers and fire war­den agreed that this could hap­pen imme­di­ate­ly, how­ev­er the police accom­pa­ny­ing the fire offi­cer made it clear that this would imme­di­ate­ly lead to arrests for crim­i­nal dam­age. It was obvi­ous from the huge num­ber of police in atten­dance that the out­come was already set, and that the only result the police would tol­er­ate was evic­tion. Giv­en the recent rep­u­ta­tion of police actions against polit­i­cal pro­test­ers, the occu­piers left for the own safe­ty rather than keep the doors secured.

A state­ment from the occu­piers said:

“We expect that this build­ing in the cen­tre of our city will remain emp­ty for an indef­i­nite amount of time, as has the pre­vi­ous social cen­tre site on Mill Road, owned by Tesco, and an increas­ing num­ber of prop­er­ties in the area. At the same time, artists, musi­cians, com­mu­ni­ty groups and local peo­ple strug­gle to find spaces to meet, socialise and put on events.

We believe that local com­mu­ni­ties, rather than wealthy inter­ests, should deter­mine what the build­ings and spaces in the local area are used for. We will be going ahead with the planned pub­lic meet­ing at 7.30 pm, in the street out­side the bin­go hall, where we will be dis­cussing the repres­sion we have faced, free spaces, and our plans for the future.”

cambridgefreespaces@listst.riseup.net
http://cambridgefreespaces.wordpress.com

—–

17.7.09
Cam­bridge BINGO! Social Cen­tre

Update on what’s going on at the occu­pied Bin­go Hall Social Cen­tre, Hob­son Street, Cam­bridge.

Cam­bridge Social Cen­tre opens in old Gala Bin­go Hall!

Mem­bers of the Cam­bridge Action Net­work have occu­pied the old Gala bin­go hall on Hob­son Street, behind Water­stones book shop. The cen­tre is now open to the pub­lic to use for events such as films, music, work­shops, art, dis­cus­sions and meet­ings. Every­one is wel­come (dur­ing rea­son­able wak­ing hours!)

We’re cur­rent­ly work­ing to clean the space up, make it nice, and get hold of fur­ni­ture, and we’d love you to join us. We organ­ise by con­sen­sus – no-one is in charge, and every­one involved has an equal say. This is every­one’s space – let’s make it bril­liant!

We’ve done this because we believe that local com­mu­ni­ties should have con­trol of local spaces, and be able to use them for what­ev­er they see fit. Emp­ty, unused build­ings are a dis­grace in a soci­ety where get­ting access to space is so dif­fi­cult. A direct exam­ple of this is in Mill Road, where a live­ly social cen­tre was closed by Tesco last year, leav­ing an emp­ty build­ing ever since.

There will be an offi­cial open­ing event on Sat­ur­day 18th July at 7.30 pm, where you are invit­ed to come along, enjoy the new social cen­tre, and see how you can use the space and get involved.

There will be a open mic event in the evening show­cas­ing local acts. Bring your own refresh­ments. Come on down!

Want to put on events or get involved? Get in touch in per­son or:

phone: 01223 356630

web: www.cambridgefreespaces.wordpress.com

email: cambridgefreespaces@lists.riseup.net

UPCOMING EVENTS from 17th JULY 2009:

Dai­ly (most days): 5.30pm POLITICAL DISCUSSION TIME — top­ics are decid­ed dai­ly by those present with some radical/social/political issues sug­gest­ed in the diary already.

Dai­ly (most days): 7:30pm PUBLIC MEETING — to dis­cuss the space/use of the space/arising issues

Fri­day, 17th July – after the pub­lic meet­ing – OPEN JAMMING SESSION

Sat­ur­day, 18th July – after the pub­lic meet­ing – OPEN POETRY & ACCOUSTIC MUSIC/LIVE BANDS (dona­tions at the door for cli­mate camp)

AND MUCH MORE COMING SOON…