Aviation and Roads – Earth First!

New Roads Threat: The “Expressway” To Hell

Plans for the largest road-building programme in a generation, since the 1990s road protests killed off the last one, are quietly gathering steam and widespread resistance is sorely needed to stem this tide. To the extent that this new attack on our countryside differs from previous incarnations, it is mostly in being more specifically linked to other forms of destructive development along the targeted routes. As such these new road pose an even greater threat per mile than the usual carving up more countryside, increased traffic and air pollution etc.

Hundreds of miles of new roads, costing billions of pounds, are being planned across the country, including new Expressways (motorway-style A roads). These plans include the A303, A358 and A30 corridor from Cornwall to Hampshire, Oxford-Cambridge Expressway, A417 from M5 Gloucester to M4 Swindon through Cotswolds, A1 Northumberland north of Newcastle, the A556 in Cheshire and the A14 in Cambridgeshire. There are also similar threats in Scotland and Wales.

While there is significant resistance from many community campaigns in various places, there is also a worrying trend of pro-road building campaigns popping up to lobby for these roads. The small number of media conglomerates who own the majority local newspapers appear to be particularly active in initiating these campaigns, but regardless of the extent to which these local pro-campaigns have been astro-turfed into existence, the fact that they have so far getting away with doing so shows how much work there is to do in fighting this assault.

While the usual justifications of the “need” for growth and solving the housing crisis are being trotted out, naked greed is a far better characterisation of the driving force behind these schemes. Just the million new houses which would be facilitated be the Oxford-Cambridge Expressway (see below) represents an eye watering £150 billion in pure profit for the developers involved, while driving even more housing market speculation and making housing even more unaffordable for the average person.

Threats Across The Country

Below are listed some of the more high profile and urgent threats, but see the map (right) for a representation of the scale of the threat:

Oxford-Cambridge Expressway – New £3.5 billion expressway plan between A34 south of Oxford and Milton Keynes, to support a “Growth Corridor” aimed at facilitating the building of a million new houses along the route. Would Otmoor nature reserve – a unique habitat of rare wetland Campaigns: Save Otmoor, Expressway Action Group

A27 (Sussex) – Plans for upgrading the A27 coast road through Sussex and Hampshire to an “expressway”, through South Downs National Park, including Arundel bypass. Arundel bypass threatens a huge area of ancient woodland and smother vulnerable and rare chalk stream habitat around the village of Binstead. Campaigns: Save Binstead

A417 (Gloustershire) – £485 million plan 5km stretch of dual carriageway, between the M4 at Swindon and M5 at Gloucester in Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), crossing the geologically important and visually stunning Cotswolds Escarpment at Crickley Hill

Hereford Bypass – A £200m bypass threatening parts the Wye Valley around Hereford, such as Grafton Wood, an ancient wood pasture Campaigns: Wye Ruin It

A12 (Suffolk) – £133m proposals to reroute the A12 with severe impacts on the Alde and Ore valley, ancient woodlands, historic churches and listed buildings Campaigns: Say No To The Four Village Bypass (Facebook)

A57/A628 Trans-Pennine Upgrade Dual carriageway through the Peak District National Park, linking up the M60 in the south east of Manchester to the M1 north of Sheffield, including bypass through Mottram Moor

A303, A358 and A30 Corridor – Planned £2bn Expressway route through South West, including a 4-lane expressway and 2.9 km tunnel through Stonehenge UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS) Campaigns: Stonehenge Alliance

M4 Relief Road (Newport) – Plan for new 14-mile stretch of motorway south of Newport, which would cause irreparable damage to the Gwent Levels, including 5 wetland Sites of Special Scientific Interest where Common Cranes have been spotted for the first time in 400 years Campaigns: Save The Levels, Campaign Against the Levels Motorway (Facebook)

A5036 Liverpool Port Access Road – Dual carriageway through Rimrose Valley Country Park, large green space in otherwise urban area, in Litherland, south Sefton, accessing the expanding Port of Liverpool. Campaign: Save Rimrose Valley (Facebook)

A6-M60 Link Road (Stockport) – 9 km dual carriageway is planned through Goyt Valley countryside and Poise Brook Valley nature reserve and ancient woodland Campaigns: Goyt Valley SOS (Facebook)

A96 (Aberdeenshire) – Plan to upgrade the A96 between Aberdeen and Inverness to dual carriageway, threatening the Bennachie Hills Save Bennachie Alliance

A5 Western Transport Corridor (Tyrone/Derry) – Planned dual carriageway all the way from Derry past Strabane and Omagh to the Monaghan border at Aughnacloy Campaigns: Alternative A5 Alliance

A6 Upgrade (Derry/Antrim) – £400m development of A6 road between Belfast and Derry, including dual carriageway between Toome and Castledawson, near the edge of Lough Beg – an internationally recognised Ramsar-designated wetland, bird sanctuary and National Nature Reserve

More Information

Campaign Against Manchester Airport 20th Anniversary Rally 20/5/17

On 20th May 1997 police, baileffs, and unknown men-in-black, started removing protesters from the site of what is now Manchester Airport’s Runway 2. It would take four weeks to remove everyone from the tunnels and the trees, and twenty years later they still haven’t built another runway anywhere in the UK.

Twenty years later we’re going back, to remember old times, and to remind the world of the terrible environmental cost of air travel.

If you were there, if you wanted to be there, if you saw us on TV, or if you just want to protest the climate impact of aviation, please come along.

If you want to walk to the rally, we will meet at 11:45AM at the free car park by Northcliffe Chapel, on Altringham Road, Styal (SK9 4JQ) for a 2 mile walk along the beautiful Bollin Valley. The path can be muddy in bad weather, and is unsuitable for puchchairs or people with mobility problems.

The rally will be held at 1PM by the roundabout where the footpath from Styal crosses the A538, behind the Airport Inn (formerly the Moat House), a place called Oversleyford Bridge. There is a limited amount of unofficial free parking here. Please go round the corner and don’t block the crash gates.

After a short rally we will walk to the Bollin Tunnel under the second runway, which was the site of Wild Garlic and River Rats camps in 1997.

If you need a lift, or collecting from Styal or Manchester Airport railway stations please post below.

Please bring memories, photographs, stories and music, and lets make this a great day. We were right twenty years ago, and we are still right.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1697344283897420/

Twyford Down ‘Operation Greenfly’ audacious direct action anniversary today

Today (22/5/16) is the 23rd anniversary of Operation Greenfly at Twyford Down – one of the most exciting and audacious direct actions of the 1990s. Twenty-one years ago, the govt were trying to bulldoze a road through the most protected landscape in England and a massive direct action campaign erupted to stop them, which kickstarted the 1990s roads protest movement. We had an anonymous tip off that the road builders would have to close the whole of the M3 motorway over night to erect a ‘bailey bridge’ over it, to move the huge quantities of ‘spoil’ (chalky guts of Twyford Down) and spread it all over the water meadows below. They called this hugely important and strategic manoeuvre ‘Operation Market Garden”. So we launched “Operation Greenfly” to counter them.

They hired security guards from all over southern England, surrounded the site with razor wire, and had 100s of police protecting the site. However, as night fell and the motorway was about to close, some 200 protesters eluded police, went cross country and approached the site from an unprotected angle, miraculously trampling down the razor wire, and flooding onto the site, occupying the bridge!

For many people it was one of the most miraculous and empowering actions we’d ever pulled off. We occupied that bridge all night, drumming on the metal structure to keep our spirits up and warding off the “forces of darkness”, with the noise echoing across the water meadows and the silenced motorway. Fire breathers added extra drama. Hugely stirring and unforgettable. They had to draft in cops from all over southern England, and prise everyone off the bridge, cutting all the lock ons, taking hours. Over 50 arrests resulted with all of us being spread across police stations in the south.

They managed to just about get the bridge across the motorway before it reopened at 7am. However, they couldn’t complete the job and had to re-close the motorway 2 weeks later, causing major delays to their construction programme.

Were you there? What are your memories of that night?

Attacking UK’s coal transport system – Severing the lines that feed the machine

Severing the lines that feed the machine is not impossible. When people take up civil uprising in the UK, if people are able to shove their obligations to one side to open up an avenue, they mainly have the ability and possibility to be able to grasp their will for something new. The war is not over when those moments stop, it sparks up in little raptures here and there, showing that we are not crushed, things can be brought to a grinding halt again, even for a split second.

It just takes a few bright spirits and we see it clear, when the smug confidence of authorities is knocked, a few pins get hit out and things can be seen in a different light. Out of synch and off balance, everything no longer appears structurally sound, life feels more up for grabs.

The new horizon peaked through our cloudy day, Sunday 6th March, and we hope this uncomplicated act of sabotage we have undertaken exposes the vulnerability of their complex matrix.

We took a risk assessment and as night just started to close in we entered the 1st railway tunnel, we cut both lines with a portable disc cutter, we didn’t imagine de-railing a locomotive but wrecking disruption and economic damage (time is money). We entered a 2nd and did a further two cuts, marking them all with pink paint, and leaving a banner as a warning.

The line in question runs through the Avon Gorge from Royal Portbury Dock over from Avonmouth, it’s freight only (no passengers), 70% of the UK’s imported coal for power generation comes through these docks. This line is a bottle-neck to the country’s dispersal. Most of it from USA where they blow apart mountains to get it out and Russia from the Shor and Teleut ancestral lands laid waste in Siberia, also places like Indonesia which drive back the forests for sprawling mines and plantations. That’s to keep factories running and city lights on, when we’ve got a feeling for escaping the work prisons and regaining the stars. Other loads carried on the line include construction aggregate and new built vehicles on their way to the show room. More high-speed trainlines are coming to the UK, more roads, more ancient woodland and wildlife wiped out in the frenzy of progress.

After seeing the firey activities against the coal flow in the Hambach forest of Germany since New Years – don’t give up the fight!, or the cutting of the coal belt in Scotland some years back by persons unknown when the battles against coal mining raged, we realise we’re not original. It’s not even the first time for eco-sabotage ambushes on that line from Portbury or the troublesome cargo, over the years. We see attacks following attacks on trainlines in different countries, it’s within reach to hinder the circuits powering the giant, we just have to harness our courage, keep an eye peeled for soft spots, maybe starting small but always dreaming big. Right now we’re reading about economic damage this month from trainline saboteurs in the north of Spain, we affirm our solidarity and respect too for the anarchists there with showcase court cases or police attention otherwise, we laugh to hear about the rowdy spirits that keep up when repressed for the fight to reject dominion. Maybe the sparks kicked up in the train tunnels even reflected over the Alps and beyond to light the sky for those in dark cells for trying to stop high-speed capitalism and also its nano-world technologies.

Joining our strength with the near and distant tribes, refusal and attack! Block the flows, up the fighters!

Toward a life that’s wild and free from coal, quarries, cars or cops. Avon Gorge sabotage group “Sand In The Gears”, signing out…..

some Stroud protest present & past (location of 2016 EF! Winter Moot)

Stroud was an appropriate location for this year’s Winter Moot, with a proud history of protest past and present.

The venue for the Moot is the Centre for Science & Art, itself saved by the Stroud Campaign Against The Ringroad in the 70s. In 1980 there were plans to demolish some 17th & 18th century listed buildings on the High Street – a combination of roof top occupations and other strategies saved them, and the road is now pedestrianised.

In 1989 the Save The Trees Campaign took on the council’s road-widening scheme (for a Tesco’s). A midnight raid to fell thirteen trees in Stratford Park was foiled when local people got wind of the ‘secret’ and attached themselves to the trees. The trees are still there, and instead a traffic calming scheme was developed, resulting in less crashes.

In 2013 a campaign was fought against developers with an apple tree being occupied for 6 days. A local who gave us a tour during the Moot of places fought for or saved by protests said: “There was a very sad end to this story, but I hope it is a good reminder of what we can do, and what may be needed in some of the battles over local development and our environment in the near future.” (source)

There’s been a long campaign these last years against the Javelin Park incinerator at Haresfield, and though the county council’s planning committee blocked it in 2013, they were over-ruled by the Secretary of State. GlosVAIN and others continue to campaign, and came to talk to us about the different community organising strategies they’ve used.

Though permission has been granted for the incinerator, the campaign continues (though unfortunately pushing an alternative that involves, er, incineration!).

Plane Stupid kick off Red Lines COP21 direct action

The main road entrance to Heathrow airport, London, was blocked by climate change activists for four hours early on Thursday morning, causing a traffic tailback several miles long.

The main road entrance to Heathrow airport, London, was blocked by climate change activists for four hours early on Thursday morning, causing a traffic tailback several miles long. Three members of anti airport expansion campaign group Plane Stupid parked a vehicle across both lanes of the inbound tunnel and locked their bodies to it, unfurling a red banner quoting David Cameron’s election promise: “No Ifs, No Buts: No Third Runway”. David Cameron has promised a decision by the end of the year on whether to build another runway at Heathrow.

This action represents an early entry for the Climate Games, sending a clear message to the UK government that expanding aviation is a no-go for the climate; were it to go ahead the UK would undoubtedly miss its emissions targets as set out under the 2008 Climate Change Act.

Nor will aviation expansion benefit the majority of the population or businesses, as is often claimed. The demand for airport expansion is being driven by rich frequent flyers. Last year, less than half of people in Britain flew. Of those who did, a mere 15% of flyers took 70% of our flights. As well as noise and air pollution, poor people are paying the price in droughts, flooding and storms so that the rich can cook the planet with frequent leisure flights. Whilst we might hope that David Cameron might live up to his pre-election promise – “no ifs, no buts, no third runway” – we can’t rely on it. Partly after being forced to take non-violent disobedient action where all other options were exhausted, we stopped a third runway before and we’ll stop it again this time too.

#RedLines

At the COP21 talks this year in Paris, the theme for the mass day of action on December 12th (D12) is Red Lines. These blockades will represent lines that cannot be crossed if we are to stay within the 2C rise in global temperatures. Failure to stay within this threshold will take us down a road where even if we reduce emissions to zero, feedback loops will mean that emissions will continue to rise: climate chaos.

In reality there are many Red Lines we should not cross, but governments and corporations seem intent to do so. In the UK this includes the aviation industry, which if it continues to grow at its current rate will by 2050 emit all of the carbon it is safe for the UK to emit. Beyond this, other red lines that are close to being crossed nationally include increasing unconventional fossil fuel extraction through fracking and a government’s ‘dash for gas’ to build power stations rather than renewables. Internationally, there are similar concerns as well as a clear need to stop lignite coal mining in Germany and the Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada. Whilst there are many such examples of industries that cannot continue, overall the science dictates that the fossil fuel industry must transition to renewables and most of the carbon must be kept in the ground.

Beyond the Paris conference

Unlike the climate talks in Copenhagen, many activists are going to Paris with low expectations. We know that the heads of state and business leaders won’t come up with a satisfactory deal to prevent climate catastrophe. Naomi Klein writes in ‘This Changes Everything’ that climate deals always come in second place to trade deals as corporate profit and perpetual economic growth are ideologically untouchable in our neoliberal era. With this in mind, the aim for many activists is to see the Paris talks as a way for us all to network between struggles and to show on day 12 that if our ‘leaders’ won’t do it, then we can stop climate chaos ourselves. Unfortunately, with the recent events in Paris, marches have been banned out of fears over safety, which may mean that our mobilisations might not be as big or as effective as we hoped.

However, given that we know that the solutions to the climate crisis won’t come from the COP, let’s see this as an opportunity rather than a problem. Let’s get out and take action wherever the real #RedLines are: the dirty fossil fuel industries, the unsustainable, undemocratic mega-projects. #ClimateGames starts tomorrow. In this game we have nothing to lose but our fears. We have our whole futures to win. Asking our ‘leaders’ to solve our problems has left us with the hottest years on record, year after year. We are the solution we’ve been waiting for.

We are not fighting for nature. We are nature defending itself.

Plane Stupid activists on Heathrow runway in climate protest

13th July 2015

12 climate change activists from anti airport expansion direct action group, Plane Stupid, got onto the north runway at 03:30am this morning at Heathrow Airport by cutting through a fence, in a peaceful protest against proposals to build a new runway.

The protesters say that going ahead with the recent Airports Commission recommendation that a third runway should be built at Heathrow will make it impossible for the UK to meet its climate change targets.

The skies above Heathrow are already the busiest in the world, and demand for flights is driven by air fares that are kept artificially low by generous tax exemptions. The activists say that if the aviation industry paid more of its environmental costs then there would be no pressing need for a new runway. Nine of the top ten most popular routes out of Heathrow are short haul, including destinations such as Paris, Manchester and Edinburgh which all have existing rail alternatives.

Ella Gilbert, an activist from Plane Stupid who is on the runway, said:

“Building more runways goes against everything we’re being told by scientists and experts on climate change. This would massively increase carbon emissions exactly when we need to massively reduce them, that’s why we’re here.We want to say sorry to anyone whose day we’ve ruined, and we’re not saying that everybody who wants to fly is a bad person. It’s those who fly frequently and unnecessarily who are driving the need for expansion, and we cannot keep ignoring the terrifying consequences of flying like there’s no tomorrow.

No ifs, no buts, no third runway. And we mean it.”

Updates – https://twitter.com/planestupid

Grow Heathrow – bailiffs resisted

At 10:00 this morning the land owner plus 5/6 bailiffs arrived to evict the residents of Grow Heathrow, threatening to break entry. Residents locked-on and climbed to higher ground. The police arrived, explaining to the bailiffs they were woefully unequipped to enforce an eviction. Indeed they were.

This success has proved to be useful practise for our call-out response, with many locals and individuals in the Grow Heathrow family arriving this morning.

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO CAME DOWN!

If you’d like to be added to the eviction call-out phone tree, email us at info@transitionheathrow.com with your phone number, or text us on 07706602284.

HAYES CARNIVAL HERE WE COME!

Notre-Dame-des-Landes: Three ‘Vinci’ lackeys chased out of the ZAD (and their vehicles sabotaged)

sabotaged biologist’s vehicle

Wednesday morning [April 29th 2015], in Vigneux-de-Bretagne, three biologists from Angers who came to study marbled newt were chased off by a dozen masked individuals.

In recent days, scientists from Gecco (Ecology and Conservation of Vertebrates Group), a Faculty of Sciences laboratory in Angers, have been taking samples on the ZAD. The concessionaire appointed by the state, mandated by Vinci, are studying the functionality of amphibian populations on the zone affected by the airport project. In this case the marbled newt.

Wednesday morning, they were acting in a place called La Fremière, north of Vigneux-de-Bretagne, when they saw a dozen hooded people arrive. They asked them to leave the premises after breaking windows and windscreens and puncturing their car tires.

By the time the gendarmes had arrived at the scene, the persons unknown had fled. There were no arrests. A complaint was filed.

Earth First! Summer Gathering, August 2015

Update: see earthfirstgathering.org for an inspiring and exciting programme and more.

Exciting plans are taking shape. Get involved by coming along to the EF! Winter Moot in Bristol.

Email: summergathering AT earthfirst.org.uk

Update: see earthfirstgathering.org for an inspiring and exciting programme and more.

Exciting plans are taking shape. Get involved by coming along to the EF! Winter Moot in Bristol.

Email: summergathering AT earthfirst.org.uk