Category: Action Reports

Scottish Coal rail terminal currently shut down — again!

Two peo­ple are cur­rent­ly occu­py­ing the con­vey­or tow­er at Scot­tish Coal’s Raven­struther Rail Ter­mi­nal in South Lanark­shire to pre­vent coal from being loaded onto freight trains and being trans­port­ed to Drax Coal Fired Pow­er Sta­tion in York­shire. The action start­ed at 5am this morn­ing – a ban­ner read­ing “Coal Kills” was unfurled on the con­vey­or tow­er.

Two peo­ple are cur­rent­ly occu­py­ing the con­vey­or tow­er at Scot­tish Coal’s Raven­struther Rail Ter­mi­nal in South Lanark­shire to pre­vent coal from being loaded onto freight trains and being trans­port­ed to Drax Coal Fired Pow­er Sta­tion in York­shire. The action start­ed at 5am this morn­ing – a ban­ner read­ing “Coal Kills” was unfurled on the con­vey­or tow­er. More updates to fol­low!

Coal Rail Ter­mi­nal Closed for a 6th time by Coal Action Scot­land sup­port­ers

At 5:00 this morn­ing two activists scaled the con­vey­or tow­er at Scot­tish Coal’s Raven­struther Rail Ter­mi­nal near Lanark, South Lanark­shire, and are cur­rent­ly occu­py­ing it and pre­vent­ing coal from being loaded onto trains which then deliv­er the coal to pow­er sta­tions. There is cur­rent­ly a freight train on the pri­vate rail sid­ings at the ter­mi­nal. The activists say they will main­tain the occu­pa­tion until they are forcibly removed by police. This is the 6th time that the site has been closed in anti-coal protests since Decem­ber 2008.

Jo Reed, one of the occu­piers at the ter­mi­nal, said: “I’m tak­ing this action to cost Scot­tish Coal mon­ey as that’s the only thing they’ll lis­ten to. The coal tak­en here and trans­port­ed to Drax Coal Fired Pow­er Sta­tion in York­shire is destroy­ing people’s health and envi­ron­ment in this area – it’s time it stopped! Burn­ing coal is caus­ing run­away cli­mate change and caus­ing harm at home and abroad.”

Today’s protest fol­lows a week-long direct action camp in July, at Glen­tag­gart East, the site of Scot­tish Coal’s new mine in South Lanark­shire. Through­out the week around 100 activists tar­get­ed infra­struc­ture in the area with an inva­sion of Main­shill Open Cast Coal Site where 45 activists stopped work on the site for the day, a block­ade of Bro­ken Cross Open­cast Coal Site and the open­cast­ing of landown­er Lord Home’s front gar­den.

The haulage of coal by HGV is a major issue in the area, and pro­test­ers are call­ing for a stop to all haulage through the vil­lages of Dou­glas and Gle­spin.

Gle­spin res­i­dent David Grey said: “Coal from Dou­glas Val­ley mines comes right through Dou­glas and Gle­spin, past two pri­ma­ry schools with no lev­el cross­ings. We were promised that this wouldn’t hap­pen when plan­ning per­mis­sion was grant­ed for the Main­shill mine. Now that the huge site at Glen­tag­gart East and 1 mil­lion tonne exten­sion to Bro­ken Cross have been approved, Scot­tish Coal want to bring even more coal through our com­mu­ni­ties. Action needs to be tak­en to pre­vent this.”

The start of a new 4 mil­lion tonne mine at Glen­tag­gart East will make these issues even more press­ing. Rob Hearne, par­tic­i­pat­ing in the protest today said: “Already over 1000 HGV trips are made through the Dou­glas Val­ley to rail­heads every week. Glen­tag­gart East will only add to this and make the prob­lem worse with anoth­er 333 trips a week.”

It is esti­mat­ed that today’s action will stop around 4,000 tonnes of coal from being trans­port­ed to Drax Coal Fired Pow­er Sta­tion and cost Scot­tish Coal at least £200,000.

Coal Action Scot­land
e‑mail: contact@coalactionscotland.org.uk
 Home­page: http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/

(Australia) Newcastle residents protest health effects of proposed 4th coal terminal

New­cas­tle res­i­dents and activists dressed in med­ical gowns protest­ed the lack of con­sid­er­a­tion of health and cli­mate change effects in the pro­posed build­ing of a fourth coal ter­mi­nal at the port of New­cas­tle, already the world’s largest coal port. A peace­ful protest and ‘lock­on’ occurred out­side The office of NSW Min­is­ter for Plan­ning Brad Haz­zard last Thurs­day who is due to con­sid­er the mer­its of the pro­pos­al.

Relat­ed: Newcastle’s T4 project puts short-term prof­it before health | Some­thing in the air: time for inde­pen­dent test­ing in coal areas | Coal Ter­mi­nal Action Group

Dressed as doc­tors and patients, about 20 pro­tes­tors hold­ing ban­ners and plac­ards occu­pied the front steps of Gov­er­nor Mac­quar­ie Tow­er at 1 Far­rer Place, Syd­ney.

Two cam­paign­ers were allowed in to meet with Min­is­ter Haz­zard’s staff. They spent 25 min­utes dis­cussing the 4th ter­mi­nal and relay­ing the com­mu­ni­ty’s con­cerns over health and cli­mate and request­ed a pub­lic meet­ing in New­cas­tle with the Min­is­ter.

On the steps of the build­ing Spokesper­son Alex McIn­nis said “We are here because there are plans to expand New­cas­tle coal port, which is going to hurt the health of the com­mu­ni­ty because of the impact of coal dust. It’s also going to dam­age our farm­land and cli­mate.”

“So, we’ve come to Min­is­ter for Plan­ning Brad Haz­zard’s office to urge him to reject the planned expan­sion of the coal port and lis­ten to the com­mu­ni­ties con­cerns over health and put those con­cerns in front of the inter­ests of the coal com­pa­nies and reject the coal ter­mi­nal.” she said.

Anoth­er pro­tes­tor dressed in a med­ical gown said: “We are here today because in the res­pi­ra­to­ry unit the asth­ma caused by coal dust in the Hunter region and New­cas­tle is a seri­ous health haz­ard. We are ask­ing Min­is­ter Haz­zard not to allow the pro­posed 4th coal ter­mi­nal in New­cas­tle to go ahead.”

Police attend­ed and asked the pro­tes­tors to move. Some vol­un­tar­i­ly left the steps. Two pro­tes­tors in med­ical gowns refused and had their locks removed by the Police Res­cue Squad and were tak­en away and arrest­ed.

 

A steep drop in coal prices and reduced Demand for coal has caused many coal com­pa­nies like Rio Tin­to and Xstra­ta to shelve expan­sion plans in the Hunter Val­ley and cut jobs.

The fourth coal ter­mi­nal at New­cas­tle pro­posed by Port Waratah Coal Ser­vices will expand coal export capac­i­ty from 210 to 330 mil­lion tonnes each year, yet the demand for coal appears to be falling. Min­ing and trans­port of this coal will dou­ble the coal dust pol­lu­tion from coal trains, piles and coal load­ers that peo­ple breath in towns through­out the Hunter Val­ley.

Med­ical aca­d­e­mics have argued that Newcastle’s T4 project puts short-term prof­it before health. Pub­lic health and com­pre­hen­sive health mon­i­tor­ing has tak­en sec­ond place in coal regions to the argu­ments in favour of eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment. The long term health costs are sim­ply nev­er fac­tored into the eco­nom­ic costs.

The med­ical and health issues of coal are well known. Coal dust con­tributes to asth­ma, can­cer, heart dis­ease and stroke and it inter­feres with lung devel­op­ment and com­pro­mis­es intel­lec­tu­al capac­i­ty. In the US there has been health cost­ing data gath­ered show­ing that if the cost of dis­ease result­ing from coal was paid for by the coal and pow­er indus­tries it would almost dou­ble the cost of elec­tric­i­ty. Up to 50,000 deaths each year in the US are attrib­uted to pol­lu­tion from pow­er plants. A 2009 report by Physi­cians for Social Respon­si­bil­i­ty (USA) out­lined ‘Coal’s Assault on Human Health’ and the need to phase out coal on health, ener­gy and cli­mate grounds.

In Aus­tralia we have a woe­ful record of pol­lu­tion mon­i­tor­ing and assess­ing health costs from coal. A good start to address­ing the imbal­ance between eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and health would be estab­lish­ing com­pre­hen­sive pol­lu­tion mon­i­tor­ing done reg­u­lar­ly and inde­pen­dant­ly for all coal areas — mines, trans­port cor­ri­dors, ports, coal fired pow­er sta­tions and near­by res­i­den­tial areas — at the expense of the coal indus­try and make the data pub­licly avail­able. Read more at Some­thing in the air: time for inde­pen­dent test­ing in coal areas.

The Coal Ter­mi­nal Action Group is rais­ing mon­ey to mon­i­tor coal dust in sub­urbs between the Hunter Val­ley coal mines and Newcastle’s port.

Doc­tors for the Envi­ron­ment in their sub­mis­sion and com­ment on the Envi­ron­ment Impact state­ment said :“From the data pre­sent­ed, New­cas­tle is a pol­lut­ed town with like­ly exist­ing health impacts and now we have a pro­pos­al that will undoubt­ed­ly increase pol­lu­tion. It is not that Aus­tralia needs to make this sac­ri­fice for ener­gy secu­ri­ty, as alter­na­tives to burn­ing coal for ener­gy cur­rent­ly exist. Fur­ther­more the mor­bid­i­ty and mor­tal­i­ty con­ferred on the world’s peo­ple by the export of this coal would not be insignif­i­cant.”

Sources:

is a cit­i­zen jour­nal­ist from Mel­bourne Aus­tralia who has been writ­ing on cli­mate change, sci­ence and protests since 2004. This arti­cle was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished at Aus­tralia Indy­media

(USA) Cascadia Forest Defenders occupy billboard by Biomass Plant

Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­ers are prob­a­bly most know for  tree sits and occu­py­ing gov­ern­ment offices — most recent­ly over log­ging in the Elliott State For­est, but when it comes to log­ging, mills and bio­mass plants are a part of the equa­tion, so today CFD is occu­py­ing a bill­board near the Seneca Sawmill/Seneca Sus­tain­able ener­gy plant:

ACTIVISTS OCCUPY BILLBOARD OUTSIDE EUGENE POLLUTER SENECA SAWMILL

Eugene, OR- This after­noon mem­bers of Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­ers occu­pied a bill­board out­side of the West Eugene Seneca Sawmill with a ban­ner that read, “SENECA JONES: BAILOUTS, CLEARCUTS, & POLLUTING WEST EUGENE”.

Seneca Bio­mass is a wood burn­ing pow­er plant in West Eugene that opened in the spring of 2011 amid pub­lic protest. Though the project has been mar­ket­ed as “green ener­gy,” Seneca Bio­mass failed its first EPA air pol­lu­tion test last fall. The plant releas­es an esti­mat­ed 17,900 pounds of air tox­ins into West Eugene Neigh­bor­hoods annu­al­ly —t his in addi­tion to the 73,000 pounds already released annu­al­ly from the mill itself. There are three schools with­in three miles of the Seneca Bio­mass facil­i­ty.

While there are many indus­tri­al pol­luters in West Eugene, it so hap­pens that Seneca Jones receives pub­lic fund­ing for its dirty ener­gy project. Seneca cur­rent­ly receives 10 mil­lion dol­lars in tax cred­its from the state of Ore­gon under the Busi­ness Ener­gy Tax Cred­it Pro­gram. Seneca is now suing the state for an addi­tion­al one mil­lion to off­set the pro­duc­tion costs of their new plant.

“They get paid, we get pol­lut­ed,” says west Eugene res­i­dent and Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­er Grace Warn­er. “It would be nice if the state would give that 11 mil­lion to help­ing schools– not to pol­lut­ing them.”

Seneca is also respon­si­ble for much of the clear-cut log­ging in Ore­gon pub­lic forests. Seneca is one of the top three pur­chasers of tim­ber sales in the Elliott State For­est, where com­pa­nies clear-cut up to 850 acres every year. While the State Land Board jus­ti­fies the destruc­tion of Oregon’s last rem­nants of coastal tem­per­ate rain­for­est to ben­e­fit pub­lic schools, log­ging in the Elliott con­tributes to less than one per­cent of the State’s annu­al school bud­get.

Ore­gon can do bet­ter. We demand that Seneca:

Stop pol­lut­ing West Eugene.
Stop clear-cut­ting Oregon’s ancient forests.
Start pay­ing tax­es like the rest of us.

(USA) From the Woods: Tar Sands blockade update

I’m cur­rent­ly part of a team of awe­some friends rov­ing through the woods of east Texas as part of the Tar Sands Block­ade (TSB).

I’m cur­rent­ly part of a team of awe­some friends rov­ing through the woods of east Texas as part of the Tar Sands Block­ade (TSB). This is an epic fight to defend Tex­ans’ homes and land against the clearcut­ting and pol­lu­tion caused by the build­ing of the mas­sive Key­stone XL pipeline.

The media team for TSB are doing an awe­some job of updat­ing our web­site as Tran­sCana­da (TC) and their hired goons advance toward our block­ade with heavy equip­ment and repeat­ed­ly endan­ger our peo­ple in some scary ways. A friend and I thought that allies of the TSB might appre­ci­ate an on-the-ground per­spec­tive, and so before I go back to defend­ing our block­ade I thought I’d update y’all.
     The for­est of east Texas is total­ly beau­ti­ful. Water oak, sweet gum and slash pine trees define the canopy, and green bri­ar, mus­ca­dine grapes and beau­ty­ber­ry bush­es cov­er the ground. This for­est is home to great blue herons, turkey vul­tures, whip­poor­wills, lots of deer, rat­tlers and oth­er snakes, armadil­los, and even occa­sion­al black bears. All of these are our nat­ur­al allies and have been incred­i­bly dis­turbed by the clear cut­ting of their home.   
     At the begin­ning of this week the bad guys were oper­at­ing a feller bunch­er and clear cut­ting a vast swath of for­est aimed direct­ly at our block­ade. On Tues­day morn­ing we tem­porar­i­ly stopped them by plac­ing our­selves direct­ly in the path of their machines. As a back­hoe was plac­ing tim­bers over a gul­ly so that oth­er more destruc­tive stuff like feller-bunch­ers could advance toward our block­ade, two of our team locked down to the back­hoe and stopped it in its tracks while the rest of us pro­vid­ed cov­er. The lock­down­ers were then tor­tured by local police with TC super­vi­sors watch­ing and laugh­ing. After they were extract­ed from the back­hoe, the tim­ber bridge got built and the feller bunch­er start­ed rapid­ly destroy­ing trees advanc­ing toward our block­ade.
     Then we ran out in front of it and one of my friends sat down direct­ly in its path. All of us were way too close to the back­hoe for it to oper­ate safe­ly. Instead of back­ing away slow­ly to a safe dis­tance per OSHA reg­u­la­tions, the oper­a­tor of the machine (which might’ve been the same guy oper­at­ing the back­hoe) decid­ed to fell anoth­er tree and drop it right on my friend’s head. This demon­strates anti­so­cial and poten­tial­ly mur­der­ous behav­ior and this guy clear­ly should be get­ting men­tal help, not oper­at­ing heavy machin­ery. TC super­vi­sors were watch­ing this hap­pen the whole time, and nod­ding with approval. This is crim­i­nal and they should be pros­e­cut­ed for reck­less endan­ger­ment and attempt­ed manslaugh­ter, both of which are ille­gal in the state of Texas. It’s lucky that I caught the whole thing on film and even luck­i­er that my friend jumped out of the way in time and is now rel­a­tive­ly safe.
Our friends in trees and on the Wall are incred­i­bly brave to be main­tain­ing their posi­tions despite the mech­a­nized onslaught advanc­ing toward them and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of bru­tal­i­ty by TC’s hired goons, and we are here to sup­port them no mat­ter what. The bad guys have now advanced all the way up to the wall, leav­ing a scarred and dev­as­tat­ed land­scape in their wake. There are work­ers, boss­es and goons below (as I write this) mak­ing all kinds of scary and emp­ty threats. Our peo­ple are jovial and defi­ant in the face of dan­ger. We’re invit­ing all our friends and allies out to vis­it our block­ade and pro­vide sup­plies, encour­age­ment and rein­force­ments. We who are liv­ing in the for­est are com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing our posi­tions no mat­ted how intim­i­dat­ing this multi­bil­lion-dol­lar cor­po­ra­tion and their enablers in local law enforce­ment try to be. Run­ning cir­cles around con­fused TC boss­es and their goons in the beau­ti­ful Texas for­est is total­ly fun, and every­one should come out and par­tic­i­pate.You can help by com­ing down to join us, by doing sol­i­dar­i­ty actions against TC and their enablers in your local town, by send­ing us funds and/or gear, reach­ing out to your media con­tacts, and telling all your friends about this and ask­ing them to spread the word.
    We need: walkie-talkies, AAA bat­ter­ies, camo gear, rain gear, climb­ing gear of all kinds, tools, satel­lite inter­net, solar pan­els, deep-cell bat­ter­ies, woods food, water fil­ters, and video cam­eras.
     We make our stand here in the hope of inspir­ing oth­ers to make a stand against Key­stone XL in a broad diver­si­ty of ways. Cor­po­ra­tions should not be allowed to just roll over us the way they’ve repeat­ed­ly done for decades. Resis­tance is com­ing. Every­one affect­ed by this pipeline must real­ize that risks must be tak­en in defense of what we love. Lay­ing down in front of things, or any vari­a­tion on that, is good for pub­lic­i­ty but is nowhere near enough. Peo­ple must rise up and defend their homes.
Love and Rage,
Anony­mous Block­ad­er # 57

(Switzerland) Eco-anarchist Costa is released from prison!

Eco-anar­chist pris­on­er Cos­ta Ragusa is released like Bil­ly and Sil­va – Nev­er repen­tant – Nev­er for­got­ten!

Eco-anar­chist pris­on­er Cos­ta Ragusa is released like Bil­ly and Sil­va – Nev­er repen­tant – Nev­er for­got­ten!

The com­rades had been sen­tenced for plan­ning an attack against a lab­o­ra­to­ry of IBM nan­otech­nol­o­gy under con­struc­tion in Zurich.

(USA) When Big Oil Attacks

Tues­day after­noon in East Texas, after police bru­tal­ly tor­tured two pro­test­ers locked to a back­hoe and work­ers resumed destruc­tion of the for­est, mem­bers of the Tar Sands Block­ade, deter­mined not to be deterred by vio­lence, moved in to try and stop work again. One activist sat down in front of a feller bunch­er, a hideous machine used to rapid­ly cut down small­er trees, and, after mak­ing eye con­tact with the work­er, almost had a tree dropped on him. The video shows it all, and you can read the activist’s own telling of the inci­dent here.

There’s real­ly not much else to say. Big Oil is attack­ing our bod­ies, our homes, and the plan­et, and now that the cards are on the table, it’s time to fight back. Word on the street is that we’ve got a love­ly crew of Earth First!ers ready for action join­ing us tonight or tomor­row morn­ing, but there’s plen­ty of room for you to get involved too. Go here or email noneshallpass@riseup.net, and we’ll see you on the ground.

- Tar Sands Block­ad­er

A259 Link Road one hour from London help us now

The Combe Haven val­ley is a unique habi­tat which was once the port of Hast­ings (pre 1066). Evi­dence is now being obtained from a small group of entu­si­asts which proves this unique val­ley, which is in the Parish of Crowhurst Sus­sex, was the site of the Nor­man Inva­sion and also the Bat­tle of Hast­ings in 1066.

The Combe Haven val­ley is a unique habi­tat which was once the port of Hast­ings (pre 1066). Evi­dence is now being obtained from a small group of entu­si­asts which proves this unique val­ley, which is in the Parish of Crowhurst Sus­sex, was the site of the Nor­man Inva­sion and also the Bat­tle of Hast­ings in 1066. Our group is fight­ing a bat­tle with East Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil to stop the A259 Link Road cut­ting through one of the most impor­tant her­itage sites in the land and also an invalu­able envi­ro­men­tal reserve.

Bull­doz­ers are already on the site dig­ging trench­es. An ini­tial road protest is organ­ised this week­end. Please famil­iarise your­self with the her­itage sto­ry because this is impor­tant. 5000 Eng­lish­men gave their blood in this val­ley and it should be pre­served and not des­e­crat­ed with a road that goes through open coun­try­side — see the videos on our web site — see why we are fight­ing to save this place one hours dri­ve from cen­tral Lon­don

http://secretsofthenormaninvasion.wordpress.com/2012/09/24/stop-the-road-camp-this-saturday-29th-september-2012/

 

(USA) Texas Tar Sands Blockade Continues Despite Police Torture

Despite sum­mer being over, things con­tin­ue to heat up in Texas for the Tar Sands Block­ade as we enter day 3 of the tree-sit.  On Mon­day, 8 peo­ple took to the trees to defend the land from clear-cut­ting that would allow for con­tin­ued con­struc­tion of the pipeline.  And yes­ter­day, two ground-dwelling allies locked them­selves to a piece of con­struc­tion machin­ery that was being used to build a road to the tree vil­lage, effec­tive­ly halt­ing TransCanada’s work for most of the day.

The police response to this action was pre­dictable but nev­er­the­less shock­ing.  Under the encour­age­ment of Tran­sCana­da super­vi­sors, police used sus­tained choke­holds, vio­lent arm-twist­ing, pep­per spray, and mul­ti­ple shocks from a Taser, all while the two block­aders were in hand­cuffs. Despite the tor­ture, the two block­aders held strong for hours, and their per­se­ver­ance has only fur­ther inspired block­aders to con­tin­ue the protests. This morn­ing, in response to the bru­tal­i­ty inflict­ed on our com­rades yes­ter­day, anoth­er activist has ascend­ed into the tree vil­lage to join the aer­i­al block­ade, bring­ing its total pop­u­la­tion to 9.

Ben­jamin Franklin, one of the tor­tured pro­test­ers, had this to say after being released from jail: “As some­one who has a reli­gious ded­i­ca­tion to non­vi­o­lence, I have a duty to assist non­vi­o­lent tac­tics. This is a path to change that works. Despite every­thing that hap­pened at the direc­tion of Tran­sCana­da, I don’t regret my involve­ment at all. I encour­age every­body to per­se­vere in the face of this type of sheer bru­tal­i­ty. To fol­low one’s moral com­pass in spite of extreme chal­lenges is the way we move for­ward towards a more humane, tar sands-free plan­et.”

Tran­sCana­da has shown bla­tant dis­re­gard for the safe­ty of peace­ful peo­ple, local fam­i­lies, and our plan­et. Despite their claims to be con­cerned for safe­ty, whether of pro­tes­tors, landown­ers, or the plan­et, time and time again this has been shown to be patent­ly false. From encour­ag­ing tor­ture to defraud­ing and coerc­ing peo­ple out of their land to cut­ting cor­ners with safe­ty mea­sures for detect­ing and pre­vent­ing spills, TransCanada’s only con­cern is abun­dant­ly clear – prof­it.

They can be stopped. Every day of delay costs them mon­ey and brings us a tiny bit clos­er to the goal of stop­ping the pipeline. The odds are low, but this is a winnable fight.

If you read the call to action or saw this awe­some video, you know how dev­as­tat­ing extract­ing and burn­ing tar sands oil will be to the cli­mate and how crit­i­cal stop­ping this pipeline is. This action has the poten­tial to be a huge turn­ing point for the resis­tance move­ment against fos­sil fuels, but it needs your help to sur­vive and suc­ceed. If you can spare any­thing, make a dona­tion here. If you want to do more, vis­it this page or email noneshallpass@riseup.net to get involved.

For the wild!

- Tar Sands Block­ad­er

Campaigners mobilising to fight ‘hundreds of new roads’

Cam­paign­ers are hop­ing to kick-start oppo­si­tion to ‘hun­dreds of new roads’ with actions in Twyford Down and Hast­ings this week­end.

Cam­paign­ers are hop­ing to kick-start oppo­si­tion to ‘hun­dreds of new roads’ with actions in Twyford Down and Hast­ings this week­end.

Gov­ern­ment and local coun­cils are plan­ning to spend bil­lions of pounds on dozens of new roads over the next few years, and new ‘growth’ funds and devolved spend­ing pow­ers for local coun­cils threat­en to add hun­dreds more dis­as­trous projects to this list.

In the 1990s, what was in effect a pop­u­lar upris­ing [ 1 | 2 | 3 ] brought Tory plans for ‘the great­est road-build­ing pro­gramme since the Romans’ to a screech­ing halt.

Could this week­end’s actions be the begin­ning of a new upsurge of anti-roads protests?

 

Twen­ty years ago, in 1992, protests at Twyford Down helped light the fuse of the mod­ern envi­ron­men­tal direct action protest move­ment, and hun­dreds of cam­paign­ers — old and new — will be gath­er­ing there this Sat­ur­day (29 Sep­tem­ber) to protest against the new schemes.

At the same time, activists in East Sus­sex will also be stag­ing a two-day Camp and Ral­ly this week­end in the Combe Haven Val­ley out­side Hast­ings, threat­ened by a £100m road, work on which is planned to start in the new year. The Camp will include direct action train­ing and renowned trans­port cam­paign­er John Stew­art will lead a work­shop on ‘How to stop a road’.

Of the 45 trans­port schemes approved in the bud­get by the Depart­ment of Trans­port, the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) is the worst in terms of car­bon emis­sions.

Abby Nicol, a spokesper­son for the Combe Haven Defend­ers, who are organ­is­ing the Camp near Hast­ings, said:

Run-away cli­mate change is one of the great­est threats we face. Yet the gov­ern­ment are spon­sor­ing a new wave of road-build­ing across the coun­try, using mon­ey that would be much bet­ter spent on improv­ing pub­lic trans­port. We urge peo­ple to join us this week­end to see the amaz­ing area that will be destroyed unless we take action to stop it, and to learn about prac­ti­cal ways in which we can all peace­ful­ly and effec­tive­ly resist the con­struc­tion of this road.

A major con­fer­ence of local anti-road groups is due to take place in Birm­ing­ham in Novem­ber.