Category: Action Reports

New Rising Tide Group Starting Up in Norwich

Tired of watch­ing politi­cians and cor­po­ra­tions screw up the plan­et? Think that end­less eco­nom­ic growth is at the heart of the cli­mate cri­sis? Unin­spired by send­ing £3 to Char­i­ty X, but not sure where to put your ener­gy? Want to help build just, sus­tain­able solu­tions here and now? Then come to the first meet­ing of Nor­wich Ris­ing Tide!

Tired of watch­ing politi­cians and cor­po­ra­tions screw up the plan­et? Think that end­less eco­nom­ic growth is at the heart of the cli­mate cri­sis? Unin­spired by send­ing £3 to Char­i­ty X, but not sure where to put your ener­gy? Want to help build just, sus­tain­able solu­tions here and now? Then come to the first meet­ing of Nor­wich Ris­ing Tide!

Nor­wich Ris­ing Tide — Tak­ing Action to Stop the Fos­sil-Fuelled Mad­ness!

Be part of a nation­al net­work com­mit­ted to tak­ing cre­ative direct action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change, and pro­mot­ing local, com­mu­ni­ty-run solu­tions to our ener­gy needs. For five years, Ris­ing Tide groups around the coun­try have tak­en action to pre­vent air­port expan­sion, end oil com­pa­ny spon­sor­ship of the arts, stop con­struc­tion of dodgy BP and Shell pipelines, start con­struc­tion of urban com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens and much, much more – see www.risingtide.org.uk.

We all know it’s time to act, so come along to kick-start an ener­getic new group that can help bring about the rad­i­cal change that’s need­ed.

First Meet­ing:
When — Tues­day 27th Feb­ru­ary, 7.30 — 9.30pm
Where — The Green­house, 42–46 Bethel Street, Nor­wich, NR2

More Info -
www.risingtide.org.uk/norwich
07961 917535

Be part of a Ris­ing Tide for Cli­mate Action!

norwich@risingtide.org.uk
http://www.risingtide.org.uk/norwich

Some Jan Critical Mass reports — London, Leeds, Manchester (& I Bike Mcr festival)

You nev­er know what the police are going to do next on the Lon­don ride. They clamp down on some things and relax on oth­ers from one month to the next and from one part of the ride to anoth­er. ‘Sham­bol­ic’ is per­haps the word that best describes their behav­iour. They seem at times to behave more like Anar­chists than the rid­ers. You would think with their radios they could at least arrive at some sort of a con­sen­sus. In addi­tion to our usu­al police overkill the For­ward Intel­li­gence Team were also in atten­dance at the South Bank, pok­ing their cam­eras in peo­ple’s faces. All this just because of a bike ride!

You nev­er know what the police are going to do next on the Lon­don ride. They clamp down on some things and relax on oth­ers from one month to the next and from one part of the ride to anoth­er. ‘Sham­bol­ic’ is per­haps the word that best describes their behav­iour. They seem at times to behave more like Anar­chists than the rid­ers. You would think with their radios they could at least arrive at some sort of a con­sen­sus. In addi­tion to our usu­al police overkill the For­ward Intel­li­gence Team were also in atten­dance at the South Bank, pok­ing their cam­eras in peo­ple’s faces. All this just because of a bike ride!

This time the cops decid­ed to get tough with rid­ers with­out lights and those who go through red lights and also with sound sys­tems in the SOCPA zone. Did you know, it is OK for some­one with a car to play their sound sys­tem in the vicin­i­ty or Par­lia­ment but not for a cyclist with a sound sys­tem? How dis­crim­i­na­to­ry is that? Any­way, the cops allowed an extra long ‘bikes high’ stop in Oxford Cir­cus but no stop what­so­ev­er in Pica­dil­ly Cir­cus. Those rid­ers who were pulled for going through red lights are now fac­ing a £30 fine, despite the fact that some cops were actu­al­ly ush­er­ing oth­er rid­ers through red lights!

One of the high­lights of the ride was storm­ing through the Ald­wych under­pass, some­thing the police nor­mal­ly pre­vent. We had a fun time with Bri­an Haw in Par­lia­ment Square, he led the “More bikes less cars!” chants on his mega­phone and seemed in a very good spir­its. The ride split up after that at around 9pm, going off in all direc­tions and leav­ing our yel­low coat­ed ret­inue behind, chin-wag­ging among them­selves.
http://www.criticalmasslondon.org.uk

Quick­time video ver­sion — video/mp4 8.3M
Win­dows video ver­sion — video/x‑ms-wmv 8.6M

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45 peo­ple rode around Leeds for just under an hour last night, with no police inter­ven­tions. The largest ride for some years, its hoped that this is the begin­ning of rever­sal in the down­ward trend of recent times.

====================================================

crit­i­cal mass man­ches­ter last fri­day and the next one..

Crit­i­cal Mass on Fri­day was absolute­ly amaz­ing. We stood around chat­ting out­side the library for ages just chill­in and social­is­ing and meet­ing the many new­com­ers to the mass. Peo­ple mak­ing the I Bike MCR did some film­ing for part of the film and some­one tak­ing pho­tos for the bicy­cle exhi­bi­tion in March.

Then the 40 or so of us took to the streets, rid­ing around the city cen­tre and down past the sta­tion right down Grosvenor street and onto oxford road where mass­es of stu­dents wait­ing for some gig cheered us as we rode by the union. We rode through Rusholme and then up to With­ing­ton and back , hard­ly any neg­a­tiv­i­ty at all instead we were greet­ed with cheers and friend­ly beeps and waves from car dri­vers and pedes­tri­ans… woooo!
After the ride we all went for a nice cold beer..mmm

Join us on Fri­day 23rd Feb for the next one, which will end at the ram­pant lion on upper brook st/anson rd where we will have our very own cel­e­brate crit­i­cal mass par­ty with bands and dj’s play­ing reg­gae, ska and punk..

email us at: mcrcriticalmass@yahoo.co.uk
be our myspace friend: http://www.myspace.com/mcrcriticalmass
see our web­site: http://velorution.x21.org.uk

Man­ches­ter I bike Mcr fes­ti­val:

From 30th March to 20th April the I Bike MCR fes­ti­val takes place in
Man­ches­ter. It is a grass­roots fes­ti­val organ­ised by cyclists for cyclists
with diverse events that will entice any cyclist. From Bicy­cle Polo
class­es and match­es to All­ey­cat rac­ing to a Bicy­cle Art Exhi­bi­tion,
there’s some­thing for every­one.

Those involved in organ­is­ing the event are cyclists from dif­fer­ent walks
of life includ­ing cycling instruc­tors, dai­ly com­muters, bicy­cle
mes­sen­gers, Crit­i­cal Mass advo­ca­cy group mem­bers and bicy­cle mechan­ics.

Timetable

Fri­day 30th March
6pm Crit­i­cal Mass bike ride, meet at Cen­tral Library to cel­e­brate the
bicy­cle over car cul­ture.

8pm Exhi­bi­tion Open­ing at The Base­ment, 24 Lever St. The open­ing event
will be one to remem­ber and will fea­ture the pre­mier screen­ing of new
Man­ches­ter bicy­cle film “I bike MCR”. We shall also be show­ing oth­er
bicy­cle films and hav­ing a roller race (an indoor bicy­cle race- on
rollers) with lots of prizes to be won! Local acoustic bands will be
per­form­ing includ­ing the amaz­ing Coop­er Jones and Dr But­ler’s Hat­stand
Med­i­cine Band

Sat­ur­day 31st March
1pm Platt Fields Park Bicy­cle Polo class. Oxford bicy­cle polo team are
com­ing to teach us how to play the sport. Please email to reserve a place.
(they return 2 weeks lat­er to play a match: Man­ches­ter vs Oxford)

Sun­day 1st April
2pm Cen­tral Library April Fools Day Bicy­cle Trea­sure Hunt. A fun trea­sure
hunt around our city.

Wednes­day 4th April
Moon­light Pub Ride Start 7pm Sand­bar, Grosvenor St (off Oxford Road/opp.
All Saints Park. A night ride out and around the out­skirts of Man­ches­ter
stop­ping off at some love­ly pubs for a drink on the way.

Fri­day 13th April
Hell Of The North West All­ey­cat
Fix­ies and road­ragers ride the all­ey­cat for a fast race round our city. £5
entry, amaz­ing prizes to be won. with some donat­ed by the won­der­ous Twin
Six and Keirin Cul­ture
Email to reg­is­ter

Alleykit­ten
Shop­pers, bmx’s and sil­ly bikes ride alleykit­ten for a ran­dom race full of
games and non­sense round our city cen­tre. £5 entry, amaz­ing prizes to be
won. Email to reg­is­ter

Sat­ur­day 14th April
1pm Platt Fields Park Bicy­cle Polo Match: Man­ches­ter vs Oxford.

For more infor­ma­tion see the web­site: www.ibikemcr.org.uk or email
info@ibikemcr.org.uk

Colombian farmers evicted by British mining companies

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of African-Colom­bian and Indige­nous fam­i­lies evict­ed from their land in the province of La Gua­ji­ra, Colom­bia to make way for a mas­sive open­cast coal mine will speak in Lon­don on Mon­day 29th Jan­u­ary, 6.30pm‑8.30pm at The Human Rights Action Cen­tre, 17–25 New Inn Yard, Lon­don EC2.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of African-Colom­bian and Indige­nous fam­i­lies evict­ed from their land in the province of La Gua­ji­ra, Colom­bia to make way for a mas­sive open­cast coal mine will speak in Lon­don on Mon­day 29th Jan­u­ary, 6.30pm‑8.30pm at The Human Rights Action Cen­tre, 17–25 New Inn Yard, Lon­don EC2.

Many com­mu­ni­ties have been forced from their land since the mine opened in the 1970s. The vil­lage of Taba­co was demol­ished in 2001 just after British-based com­pa­nies bought into the project. Many inhab­i­tants accept­ed the inad­e­quate finan­cial com­pen­sa­tion on offer, oth­ers are still hold­ing out for com­mu­ni­ty relo­ca­tion so that they can con­tin­ue liv­ing as a com­mu­ni­ty and farm­ing the land as they did before.

The British-based com­pa­nies that now own the mine are Anglo Amer­i­can, BHP­Bil­li­ton and Xstra­ta. All raise mon­ey on the Lon­don Stock Exchange. Anglo Amer­i­can has its head office in Lon­don. Many pen­sion funds invest in these com­pa­nies. Many ordi­nary work­ing peo­ple in Britain, with­out know­ing it, are ben­e­fit­ing from the destruc­tion of farm­ing com­mu­ni­ties in Colom­bia by the world’s rich­est min­ing multi­na­tion­als. All three com­pa­nies have good rep­u­ta­tions as social­ly and envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble enter­pris­es. The real­i­ty is very dif­fer­ent. Come and hear the com­mu­ni­ties’ side of the sto­ry

Loca­tion: The Audi­to­ri­um, Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al UK, The Human Rights Action Cen­tre, 17–25 New Inn Yard, Lon­don EC2
Con­tact:  info@colombiasolidarity.org.uk
(near­est tube Old Street)

12 February 2007 — Fantastic February Blockade at AWE Aldermaston

12 Feb­ru­ary 2007
Fan­tas­tic Feb­ru­ary Block­ade at AWE Alder­mas­ton
From 7 am at Tadley gate

Block the Builders photo montage12 Feb­ru­ary 2007
Fan­tas­tic Feb­ru­ary Block­ade at AWE Alder­mas­ton
From 7 am at Tadley gate

Meet up the night before for con­spir­a­cy and prac­tice

Block the Builders are call­ing for spe­cial efforts for this last
announced block­ade before the vote on Tri­dent replace­ment

Par­lia­ment will vote on Tri­dent replace­ment with­in weeks. The gov­ern­ment
are propos­ing a long term pol­i­cy in favour of new nuclear weapons and
against
dis­ar­ma­ment. Now is the time to show your oppo­si­tion to British weapons
of mass destruc­tion in a prac­ti­cal and vis­i­ble way.

If Par­lia­ment vote to replace Tri­dent in March it will be an uphill
strug­gle for decades to come, so it is vital that we exert pres­sure now
to influ­ence the
debate. This means not just tak­ing action, but also let­ting peo­ple know
— local groups, local media and your local MPs as they are the ones who will
be vot­ing.

At Alder­mas­ton new facil­i­ties to devel­op the replace­ment for Tri­dent are
already being built. Block the Builders are call­ing for all build­ing work to
stop until a deci­sion is made about the future of Britain’s nuclear weapons.

Pre­vi­ous­ly…
In Novem­ber 400 peo­ple descend­ed on Alder­mas­ton to oppose Tri­dent
replace­ment and halt the con­struc­tion of new facil­i­ties. Nuclear war work
was dis­rupt­ed for sev­er­al hours but the large num­bers involved meant
that only one per­son was arrest­ed. The more peo­ple we have the low­er the
risks are.

The road out­side Alder­mas­ton was closed by police for two hours in
Decem­ber dur­ing a block­ade by a dozen peo­ple using a con­crete-filled
wheel­ie bin and
a vari­ety of lock-ons. And a suc­cess­ful sur­prise action this week by
Scot­tish activists saw con­struc­tion traf­fic blocked for four hours and
con­crete
lor­ries arriv­ing to build the new facil­i­ties were turned away.

Join the block­ade on Mon­day 12 Feb­ru­ary.
Block the Builders are call­ing for a spe­cial effort dur­ing this cru­cial
time.
Non-arresta­bles and sup­port­ers are need­ed. We are encour­ag­ing oth­ers to “be
pre­pared”. Bring plans, equip­ment and enthu­si­asm. Bring your friends!

Accom­mo­da­tion avail­able the night before, legal sup­port team on the day.

See www.blockthebuilders.org.uk for fur­ther details or
ring 07969 739 812

Protests continue at Trebanos

26.01.2007

At 2.00 pm today a group of cam­paign­ers against the con­tro­ver­sial LNG pipeline forced work to stop yet again on the con­struc­tion site in Tre­banos.

Pipe protest on footpath26.01.2007

At 2.00 pm today a group of cam­paign­ers against the con­tro­ver­sial LNG pipeline forced work to stop yet again on the con­struc­tion site in Tre­banos.

Cam­paign­ers occu­pied a foot­path run­ning through the site. They argued that the foot­path had been closed ille­gal­ly because the required sev­en days noti­fi­ca­tion had not been giv­en. Even local res­i­dents had not been informed of the clo­sure.

Ini­tial­ly, the police tried to stop pro­tes­tors gain­ing access to the foot­path, how­ev­er, they had to admit that they were uncer­tain of the legal­i­ty of the path clo­sure.

Pri­or to today’s action, work on the con­struc­tion site had been stopped for three weeks by cam­paign­ers occu­py­ing the foot­path. Resis­tance to the pipeline is grow­ing, with protest sites and actions against the pipeline increas­ing dai­ly. The lat­est direct action site is a tree camp in Bre­con occu­py­ing the route of the pipeline.

Come to Wales and be on the front­line of Britain’s eco-defence!

Con­tact Rachael (Tre­banos): 01792 830417
Bre­con Tree Camp: 07903152822

ex-vortex eviction thwarted this morning (pics and film)

dozens of sup­port­ers arrived this morn­ing to ensure that no ille­gal evic­tion could take place at the occu­pied social squat in the build­ing that used to host the vor­tex jazz club in stoke new­ing­ton church street.

dozens of sup­port­ers arrived this morn­ing to ensure that no ille­gal evic­tion could take place at the occu­pied social squat in the build­ing that used to host the vor­tex jazz club in stoke new­ing­ton church street.

there was much local sup­port as res­i­dents don’t want more lux­u­ry flats, a tesco, or a star­bucks, all of which are pos­si­ble plans for the site under own­er richard mid­da’s stew­ard­ship.

mid­da is so unpop­u­lar in the area that a pho­tog­ra­phy stu­dio was sold to alex ross (the present own­er of the spence bak­ery) at under mar­ket val­ue, rather than allow mid­da to buy it, even although he was offer­ing far more.

a woman police offi­cer who attend­ed the scene was clear­ly sym­pa­thet­ic to the squat­ters, and after seek­ing advice and clar­i­fi­ca­tion, report­ed that the bailiffs would have to return once they had writ­ten clar­i­fi­ca­tion from the court (which may take up to two weeks).

one inde­pen­dent pho­tog­ra­ph­er was so tak­en with the offi­cer that he asked if she had a boyfriend — his hopes were dashed when she told him she was mar­ried.

quick­time — video/mp4 6.5M
flip4mac/wmv — video/x‑ms-wmv 7.1M

films attached in wmv and mp4 for­mats

if you can’t see the film just by click­ing on it (and wait­ing awhile, as these are sev­er­al megabytes of data), then right-clik-hold (ctrl-clik on mac) instead and ‘down­load linked file’ before watch­ing it on your view­er of choice
on mac or pc, i rec­om­mend down­load­ing vlc which is a free view­er from viedolan, or also mplay­er (free too)
on a mac, if you insist on watch­ing the wmv, then down­load ‘flip4mac’ so you can watch it on quick­time, as the win­dows media view­er itself puts all sorts of nas­ties on your sys­tem.

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Ear­li­er report:

From 8.30am around 70–80 peo­ple, the major­i­ty local res­i­dents, turned out to sup­port the resis­tance to the threat­ened evic­tion of the Vor­tex Occu­pied Social Cen­tre. The own­er, Richard Mid­da, a well known thug and prop­er­ty devel­op­er threat­ened to use force to evict the occu­piers if they did not leave by 9.00am.

But like the say­ing goes “they make plans we make his­to­ry”! After see­ing such a response, com­posed of all age ranges and faced with no few­er than 15 film and video cam­eras the police inter­vened and there­by start­ing a debate on the fin­er points of law. With the cops in the mid­dle of this legal debate a deci­sion was made to send one per­son from the Social cen­tre and the own­er, mid­da, to Stoke New­ing­ton Police sta­tion where inde­pen­dent legal advise is now being sort.

This is cur­rent as of 9.50am.

This occu­pa­tion has its roots in both the tra­jec­to­ry of occu­pa­tions from the Rad­i­cal Dairy (Stoke New­ing­ton) in 2002 and the sub­se­quent spaces (Occu­pied Social Cen­tre — Ken­tish Town,Ex-Grandbanks — Tufnell Park, Insti­tute of Auton­o­my — Blooms­bury, The Square — Blooms­bury), BUT also in last years occu­pa­tion of “Francesca’s Cafe” on Broad­way Mar­ket — Hack­ney and Daslton the­atre in Dal­ston.

It shows that rad­i­cal polit­i­cal inter­ven­tions in the form of occu­pied social cen­tres can res­onate with pre-exisit­ing social ten­sions and anto­gan­isms, espe­cial­ly around gen­tri­fi­ca­tion and “com­mu­ni­ty” issues and acti­vate peo­ple to self-organ­ise and take some con­trol on how their environment(and qual­i­ty of life) are shaped.
If your in the area come down, we have now occu­pied both sides of the pave­ment due to num­bers.
one of the Vor­tex Anar­chists

occupiedsocialcentre@hushmail.com
http://www.londonsocialcentre.org.uk

Hell at Shell petrol Stations: London blockade

Report 1 — On the evening of the 24th Jan­u­ary two Shell petrol sta­tions in north Lon­don were block­ad­ed by activists who are con­cerned over Shel­l’s aggres­sive busi­ness prac­tices and poor human rights record.

Report 1 — On the evening of the 24th Jan­u­ary two Shell petrol sta­tions in north Lon­don were block­ad­ed by activists who are con­cerned over Shel­l’s aggres­sive busi­ness prac­tices and poor human rights record.

For more details of Shells record see:

www.shelltosea.com
www.shellfacts.com
www.corporatewatch.com
www.artnotoil.org.uk

The non-vio­lent actions took place at Shell sta­tions on Hol­loway Road and Upper Street in north Lon­don. No arrests were made. How­ev­er some motorist became aggres­sive, made threats and insult­ed block­aders. The police did not over react and one offi­cer made the com­ment “sup­pose we can look this up on the usu­al web­site can we?” Here it is offi­cers.

After the last action at the sta­tion on Hol­loway Road one very friend­ly black cab dri­ver con­grat­u­lat­ed block­aders and asked for pub­lic­i­ty cards to hand out to his pas­sangers. Thank for your sup­port mate.

240107_Shell_Hell_WMV — video/x‑ms-wmv 18M

Report 2 — On 24th Jan­u­ary Lon­don Ris­ing Tide once again helped their friends at Rhythms of Resis­tance Sam­ba Band and oth­ers keep Shell aware that the cam­paign to pre­vent the dam­ag­ing high pres­sure gas pipeline and refin­ery near Ross­port in Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land is still rolling.

…and rolling is what it was, with even a bit of rock­ing. We tried the new tac­tic with mea­sured suc­cess of short spells at a series of North Lon­don Shell garages blockad­ing the entrance and exits with band, ban­ners and ban­danas (there was also men­tion of bananas when it came to irate dri­vers).

Hol­loway Road was the first stop where hav­ing set up and told the gas guz­zlers on the fore­court that we were not block­ing them in, one of them decid­ed to dri­ve at us from behind. Hav­ing stepped back just in time, bang­ing the win­dow as it surged past, the dri­ver got out of her 4 x 4 (fun­ny that, it always seems to be) and vio­lent­ly threat­ened to do unspeak­able things to us as indi­vid­u­als from about 2 inch­es away. More fos­sil fuelled dri­ver luna­cy fol­lowed and we decid­ed to get rolling to the next garage when push­ing came to pull us away as plod were sum­moned.

On arriv­ing at the famil­iar ter­ri­to­ry of the Shell Upper Street garage we kit­ted up and last­ed a bit longer, even turn­ing away petrol thirsty black cab dri­vers, before more vio­lence threat­en­ing behav­iour from peo­ple block­ad­ed out. The thin line of Sam­ba resist­ed and held out as we turned away the ubiq­ui­tous Isling­ton SUVs. The usu­al sup­port from the Fire Brigade was good for keep­ing up our spir­its.

After that it was back to Hol­loway Rd with less abuse but more plod and we retired to the pub when they called for back-up since the final whis­tle of the Spurs v Arse­nal game was about to be blown along with plod’s patience.

On reflec­tion over out stout we agreed it was des­per­ate­ly sad that such anger of par­tic­u­lar­ly 4 x 4 dri­vers only had the unhealthy out­let of threat­en­ing us. Espe­cial­ly when Shell’s sta­tu­spher­ic dis­re­gard of the planet’s atmos­phere and the atmos­phere of liv­ing in Mayo, Ogo­ni­land or Sakhalin seemed a bet­ter place to vent their frus­tra­tion.

Unlawful eviction planned for Vortex Social Centre tomorrow (Friday 26th Jan)

We need as many peo­ple in the build­ing at to ensure the secu­ri­ty of the social cen­tre against the bailiffs. Please cir­cu­late this wide­ly and let as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble know.

We need as many peo­ple in the build­ing at to ensure the secu­ri­ty of the social cen­tre against the bailiffs. Please cir­cu­late this wide­ly and let as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble know.

Prop­er­ty own­er of 139–141 Church street Richard Mid­da was grant­ed a pos­ses­sion order by Shored­itch coun­ty court on wednes­day 24th Jan. The next stage legal­ly is for the courts to issue a bailiffs war­rant to court appoint­ed bailiffs who will car­ry out the evic­tion on a pre-arranged date. This date we should know about in advance. Only court appoint­ed bailiffs have the right to car­ry out an evic­tion.

Imme­di­ate­ly after the court hear­ing on wednes­day Mid­da, along with his own hired pri­vate bailiffs came round to the social cen­tre (where the parent/baby group were meet­ing) threat­en­ing peo­ple while demand­ing he now had the right to the build­ing any every­one must leave. He, nor his hired goons, have a legal right to repos­sess the build­ing.

This morn­ing (thurs­day 25th) he stuck a notice on the door say­ing his pri­vate bailiffs com­pa­ny (used pri­mar­i­ly to harass ten­ants for rent) will be return­ing at 9am on fri­day morn­ing to ensure we vacate the premis­es. He has no legal right to do this.

Not only then is this an unlaw­ful evic­tion any attempt by him to gain access, or attempt to forcibly remove peo­ple from the premis­es, will be a crim­i­nal offence.

We need as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble in, at, and around the social cen­tre to pre­vent him gain­ing access (this is still our social cen­tre!) and that any activ­i­ty he engages in will be doc­u­ment­ed by us.

Be at the social cen­tre at 8.30am. bring cam­eras, cam­corders, your friends. The more of us there are the stronger we are.

occupiedsocialcentre@hushmail.com
http://www.londonsocialcentre.org.uk

Gaspipe protest in Trebanos comes to an end

25.01.2007

Today the foot­path in Tre­banos has been closed, despite res­i­dents reciev­ing next to no noti­fi­ca­tion. Legal­ly Nation­al Grid had the right to close the foot­path tomor­row (fri­day 26th) but notic­ing a reduc­tion in num­bers the foot­path was sealed off today.

25.01.2007

Today the foot­path in Tre­banos has been closed, despite res­i­dents reciev­ing next to no noti­fi­ca­tion. Legal­ly Nation­al Grid had the right to close the foot­path tomor­row (fri­day 26th) but notic­ing a reduc­tion in num­bers the foot­path was sealed off today.

Despite hav­ing the equip­ment to prop­er­ly resist an evic­tion the activists decid­ed that they’d “made their point and it was time to move on”. Well actu­al­ly there was no need to risk arrest when we have anoth­er 115 miles of pipe to protest against.

The protest con­tin­ues, here in Tre­banos, Cil­frew, at the new tree-site in Bre­con, and every­where else along route, where local peo­ple are sud­den­ly becom­ing rad­i­calised and small actions are pop­ping up all over the place.

Radley lakes — eviction imminent — update 29th jan

Urgent call for help in Oxford­shire, where activists are occu­py­ing and intend to defend a squat­ted lake­side prop­er­ty in order to pre­vent the infill­ing of Radley Lakes with tox­ic ash from the burn­ing of cheap import­ed coal at the near­by NPow­er owned Did­cot pow­er sta­tion.

Radley Lakes squat
Urgent call for help in Oxford­shire, where activists are occu­py­ing and intend to defend a squat­ted lake­side prop­er­ty in order to pre­vent the infill­ing of Radley Lakes with tox­ic ash from the burn­ing of cheap import­ed coal at the near­by NPow­er owned Did­cot pow­er sta­tion.

The lakes are unusu­al in their clar­i­ty and the area con­tains local and nation­al rare and threat­ened species, with 115 species of birds record­ed and over1000 trees sur­round­ing the lake which will be felled. How­ev­er this has been ignored by pow­er com­pa­ny RWE npow­er, and has been rail-road­ed through by Oxford­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil.

The lake con­tains sev­er­al pro­tect­ed species, includ­ing a pos­si­ble sight­ing of otters, and despite a report paid for by local peo­ple con­firm­ing all this the local gov­ern­ment big­wigs have giv­en per­mis­sion for N Pow­er to fill the lake with fly­ash from Did­cot pow­er sta­tion, killing every­thing in the process. They have already been allowed to do this to 3 oth­er lakes in the imme­di­ate vicin­i­ty. The local coun­ty ecol­o­gist has dis­missed the report, despite a long term cam­paign and evi­dence from anoth­er ecol­o­gist prov­ing the lake is a wildlife haven. The whole thing stinks.

Please, please if you are free this week, (or even bet­ter, right now), get down there, lock on, and make sure they have a fight on their hands. The baliffs are due any minute and more peo­ple are des­per­ate­ly need­ed.

Get off the train at Oxford, then catch train to Radley, takes about 10 mins, then anoth­er 10/15 minute walk. For more info call the site mobile on: 07772055384.

TAT NEEDED!
PolyProp, air horns/ rape alarms, cement, aggre­gate, etc, BOATS (dingy/inflatables etc — lake­wor­thy!) bed­ding & PEOPLE! — even if you can just spare a day to help out with build­ing defences is is much need­ed and appre­ci­at­ed.
Thanks

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24.01.2007 — Npow­er have been grant­ed imme­di­ate pos­s­e­sion of San­dles, the squat­ted field cen­tre at Radley lakes. A call out to any­one to come down and bring cake and lock on tubes!
Call the site mobile 0777 2055 384
www.saveradleylakes.org.uk for more info on the npow­er plans to destroy this beau­ti­ful area