Category: Aviation and Roads

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.

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.

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.

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.

 

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.

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