Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

Roll Back The Tracks Bike Ride

What do you need to bring?

– bicy­cle 🙂
– bicy­cle pan­niers
– tent, sleep­ing mat and sleep­ing bag
– headlamp/flashlight
– pow­er bank for charg­ing elec­tron­ics
– bot­tles for car­ry­ing drink­ing water
– a seal­able tup­per­ware for car­ry­ing food and eat­ing out of, mug and cut­lery
– toi­letries and med­ica­tion
– clothes to stay warm and dry
– first aid kit
– a basic cycle repair kit if you have one
– ban­ners and flags to attach to your bike! (no XR ban­ners please)
– cash for dona­tions for food.
We are look­ing into con­tin­u­ing the bike ride along the sec­ond leg of the pro­posed route from Birm­ing­ham to Leeds from the 20th to rough­ly the 27th of August. For this leg, you will also need:
— camp­ing stove & gas
— cook­ing equip­ment

Camping Sites

We have tried where pos­si­ble to get per­mis­sion to use camp­ing sites. How­ev­er, in some places we will be tres­pass­ing, and as such, facil­i­ties will be min­i­mal. We have select­ed places that we feel are suit­able to camp for the nights of the 15th-19th.
On the night of the 20th, we will be wild camp­ing in a park in Brum cen­tre, and from then on, wild camp­ing in loca­tions that we have not yet vis­it­ed, and there­fore we can’t guar­an­tee they will be bril­liant places to camp.

Food & water

On the first leg of the ride from Man­ches­ter to Birm­ing­ham, we will have a cater­ing team fol­low­ing us in a vehi­cle. With vol­un­teer sup­port from us, they will pro­vide one cooked, veg­an, evening meal each day, and pro­vide the ingre­di­ents for us to make our own break­fast and packed lunch­es.
Vol­un­teers in the kitchen will need to wear a face mask and observe phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing.
Dona­tions for food are great­ly appre­ci­at­ed, though no-one will be turned away for lack of funds.
On the sec­ond leg, we will NOT be catered for, so if you are cycling from Brum to Leeds, you will need to buy your own food and cook for your­self.
Most of the camp­ing sites have run­ning water near­by. How­ev­er, you need to have at least 2 1L drink­ing bot­tles with you on the ride, and to fill them up when­ev­er pos­si­ble on route to camp­sites. Stay hydrat­ed!

Toilets

At some of the camp­sites, there are toi­lets. Where there are not toi­lets, we will have a bike trail­er toi­let cubi­cle in tow, and a spade. Col­lec­tive­ly, we will have to dig a pit for every­one to poo in. If the idea of poop­ing in a pit gross­es you out, then make sure you use pub­lic toi­lets on route.

Checking your bike is ready to join Roll Back the Tracks

Lots of dif­fer­ent bikes can make this trip, but it needs to be in good work­ing order.

Please make sure you have at least one water bot­tle hold­er on your bike. You also need to think about how you will car­ry your lug­gage. You need either a pan­nier rack bolt­ed to your bike frame to car­ry pan­nier bags with your belong­ings, or you’ll need to bring bike pack­ing bags to car­ry lug­gage direct­ly on the frame. Please don’t come with a back­pack of all your stuff, you will be sweaty and uncom­fort­able quick­ly. Full sus­pen­sion moun­tain bikes are not rec­om­mend­ed.

If you don’t cycle reg­u­lar­ly, or you are bor­row­ing a bike for the trip check that the bike fits – take it for a test ride of a few hours to see how com­fort­able it is. You need to be able to stand over the frame with­out it touch­ing you between your legs and be able to com­fort­able reach the han­dle­bars and brakes.

Check your brakes

Rim brakes (the brakes act on the metal circular part of your wheel)

• pull on the brakes one at a time to ensure that they can stop the bike
• check there is plen­ty of rub­ber across the whole of all the pads (espe­cial­ly if your brakes are noisy)
• check that the brakes just touch onto met­al and not onto the rub­ber of the tyre
• check that when you pull the brake lever (the part in your hand when rid­ing) the lever does­n’t touch the han­dle­bars.

Disk brakes

• Check that the front and the back brake stops your bike (rather than when both are pressed at the same time).
• Check the rotary wheel is straight and firm­ly attached.
• If the brakes are ring­ing you need to get them adjust­ed.

Wheels

• Check that quick release wheels are prop­er­ly tight­ened. You should be able to read the word ‘closed’ when they are;
• oth­er­wise, check that wheel nuts are tight, espe­cial­ly if you remove your front wheel.
• Clean the brak­ing sur­face if you have rim brakes – use wash­ing up liq­uid in water and a rag.
• Check the tyres are ful­ly inflat­ed. The pres­sure is writ­ten on the side of your tyre.
• Check the tyres still have a pat­tern across the sur­face and do not bulge.
• Check that the brakes haven’t rubbed a grove in the rub­ber of the tyre.
• Check that the wheel runs in a straight line – do this by lift­ing one end of your bike and push­ing the wheel round fast, it should move smooth­ly and not rub.
• Look at your wheels to ensure all the spokes are there and squeeze them in pairs to check they are of a sim­i­lar tight­ness.

Frame

• Make sure there are no cracks or big dents in the frame.
• Check the bolts attach­ing mud guards, water bot­tles and the pan­nier rack are all tight.
• Can you move the han­dle­bars flu­id­ly?
• Could they be too loose? Put the front brake on, turn the front wheel 90 degrees and then see if the front of the bike rocks if you push for­ward on the turned han­dle­bar. If so, it needs tight­ened.

Gears

• Look at your chain and every­thing it touch­es. Dirty? It real­ly is worth­while using an old tooth brush to clean each link and con­tact point before re-apply­ing oil to each link and then remov­ing any excess with a rag.
• Move the ped­als and ensure they can freely turn round com­plete­ly.
• Check that the bike can go into all of its gears. There are going to be hills, so you’ll need a range of gears.

Got a creaking bike?

Can you work out where it is com­ing from? If stand­ing up to ped­al makes it stop check your sad­dle, if it is worse when you ped­dle hard it is like­ly your bot­tom brack­et.

Got a prob­lem with one or more of these areas? If yo don’t know how to fix it find a friend who does or take it to an inde­pen­dent bike shop – but watch out they may not be able to do this at short notice.

Please bring a spare inner tube with you in case you get a punc­ture, the size is writ­ten on the side of your tyre. If you don’t know how to change a flat tyre still bring a spare inner tube and we can fix it togeth­er.

Hav­ing a ful­ly work­ing bike is your respon­si­bil­i­ty.
We are meet­ing togeth­er on the 14th at Rye­bank Fields Protest Camp in Man­ches­ter to check bikes. Please bring a bike which is in full work­ing order as we may sad­ly have to ask you not to come if you’re bike isn’t up to the job and we can’t get parts to fix it.

How can you help?

• Know of any­where we (max 50 rid­ers) could sleep in the fol­low­ing areas?
◦ North Cheshire
◦ Birm­ing­ham Cen­tre (ide­al­ly near Dig­beth)
◦ West Leices­ter­shire
◦ Sheffield
◦ Leeds
• Involved in a crit­i­cal Mass or cycling group in Brum, Not­ting­ham, Sheffield or Leeds? Help us organ­ise some cyclists into a crit­i­cal mass!
• Have you got a bike sound sys­tem you could bring on part of the ride?
• Do a work­shop on route. Sing a song round the camp­fire.
• Get cre­ative and make some flags or ban­ners for our bikes!
• Vol­un­teer in the kitchen.
• Tow the bike trail­er toi­let for a few hours.
• Spare some change? We are try­ing to raise 2000 pounds to fund the project. can you help either by donat­ing or shar­ing? Here´s the link to the crowd­fun­der:
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/roll-back-the-tracks

Drop us an email on rollbackthetracks@riseup.net to RSVP or for more info.

 

Protest camp set up against Glossop development

Row over George Street Woods rum­bles on
Fri­day 30th June 2017

Envi­ron­men­tal activists have set up a protest camp close to the cen­tre of Glos­sop.

Row over George Street Woods rum­bles on
Fri­day 30th June 2017

Envi­ron­men­tal activists have set up a protest camp close to the cen­tre of Glos­sop.

The trio moved into George Street Woods last Fri­day and say they are plan­ning to claim it ‘for the peo­ple of Glos­sop.’

The move has result­ed in con­fronta­tion after near­by res­i­dent Steve Rim­mer said the land belonged to him.

Mr Rim­mer – who lives oppo­site the site – also accused the group of tres­pass and has tried to legal­ly remove them.

The three say they will block the entrance to the land to pre­vent Mr Rim­mer gain­ing access.

Speak­ing out­side the team’s tent, protest leader Robert Hod­getts-Hay­ley, 22, said: “We intend to occu­py the land for as long as it takes.

“Glos­sop peo­ple are sup­port­ing us with food and drink and even bring­ing take­aways.”

The occu­pa­tion is the lat­est round in the long drawn-out bat­tle to decide ‘own­er­ship’ of the for­mer She­p­ley Mill site.

Stance: Steve Rim­mer claims he is the own­er of the land

Mr Rim­mer says he legal­ly acquired the site by ‘adverse pos­ses­sion’ 10 years ago with its own­er­ship unknown.

He has since put a fence around the land and cleared away much of the stone and glass.

He intends to seek plan­ning per­mis­sion to use the site for vis­it­ing car­a­van­ners.

The Friends of George Street Woods have always opposed any form of devel­op­ment, say­ing the land should be an ameni­ty for Glos­sop peo­ple to walk and have pic­nics.

They are ful­ly sup­port­ing Robert and his co-pro­test­ers Adam Mar­tin, 23, and Jake Park­er, 19, who are also try­ing to secure the land by the same method.

Robert said: “We are going for sec­ondary adverse pos­ses­sion to secure the land for the peo­ple of Glos­sop.

“We want to pro­tect the envi­ron­ment for the greater good of the peo­ple. Almost 1,000 peo­ple have signed a peti­tion sup­port­ing us.”

Protest: Jake Park­er, Robert Hod­getts-Hay­ley and Adam

Mar­tin want to claim the land ‘for the peo­ple of Glos­sop’

The pro­test­ers claim that to claim adverse pos­ses­sion a per­son must have occu­pied the land for 10 years.

They say that Mr Rimmer’s claim is two years short and because their occu­pa­tion has bro­ken the chain, his claim is no longer valid.

They claim tech­ni­cal­ly no one has owned the land since the mill came down and it is not reg­is­tered by the coun­cil.

Speak­ing to the Chron­i­cle, Mr Rim­mer main­tains the land is his and that he has improved it by remov­ing much of the rub­ble.

He says a Lon­don QC, who looked into own­er­ship, said he was in ‘law­ful adverse pos­ses­sion’ and had a right to exclude tres­passers.

Mr Rim­mer said: “High Peak Coun­cil declared it as a local green space, but I am chal­leng­ing that, it is a brown field site.

“I am seek­ing an injunc­tion to stop the tres­pass.”

Robert said bor­ough coun­cil­lors God­frey Claff and Damien Green­hal­gh had vis­it­ed the site to offer sup­port and that the whole issue was to be dis­cussed by the bor­ough coun­cil.

“We are here for as long as it takes,” he added.

Friends of George Street Woods Every­one needs a friend, espe­cial­ly those friends in dan­ger of being lost to us, those that need sup­port and nuture of the com­mu­ni­ty at large. This is the aim of FOGSW — to ensure George Street Woods remains a place for the com­mu­ni­ty to play, relax, research and pass the time in.

George Street Wood diary

A series of films doc­u­ment­ing the life on site at the George Street Wood protest in Glos­sop, Der­byshire.

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?

 

Mass action camp: End Coal Now — April/May 2016

As part of the Groundswell year of action and inter­na­tion­al mobil­i­sa­tions tak­ing on the fos­sil fuel indus­try, this May, we’re going to shut down the UK’s largest open­cast coal mine – Ffos-y-fran in Wales.

As part of the Groundswell year of action and international mobilisations taking on the fossil fuel industry, this May, we’re going to shut down the UK’s largest opencast coal mine – Ffos-y-fran in Wales. It’s up to us to keep it in the ground – sign up to join us and get updates on plans.

What’s the Plan?

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with local resis­tance groups, we’ll set up camp near Ffos-y-fran and the site of the pro­posed new mine. We’ll build a camp and use this as a base to host a pro­gramme of work­shops and train­ings, and to build the kind of com­mu­ni­ty we want to see – just, demo­c­ra­t­ic and sus­tain­able. We will also be tak­ing mass action to shut down Ffos-y-fran. The camp will take place over the May bank hol­i­day week­end, from Sat­ur­day 30th April to Wednes­day 4th May and will come just before the Welsh Assem­bly elec­tions on May 5th. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the prac­ti­cal­i­ties of the camp is com­ing soon. Sign up to the mail­ing list for updates.

Why?

For near­ly a decade, the 11-mil­lion-tonne Ffos-y-fran mine has scarred the land­scape and the com­mu­ni­ty in South Wales. Now the cor­po­ra­tion respon­si­ble for Ffos-y-fran – Miller Argent – wants to crush local democ­ra­cy and resis­tance, and dig anoth­er vast coal mine just next door at Nant Llesg. Coal is the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel and we can­not tran­si­tion to a just, demo­c­ra­t­ic and clean ener­gy sys­tem while we con­tin­ue to dig it up and burn it. We want to build on the strong tra­di­tion of mass action Cli­mate Camps in the UK, and the suc­cess of the Reclaim the Pow­er camps over the last few years. We have also been inspired by Ende Gelände and oth­er inter­na­tion­al coal resis­tance move­ments. Last year, the Welsh Assem­bly vot­ed for a mora­to­ri­um on open­cast coal min­ing, but the Gov­ern­ment have ignored them. Let’s make leav­ing fos­sil fuels in the ground a defin­ing polit­i­cal issue in Wales and the UK.

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!).

Upton anti-fracking camp eviction in progress!

12th Jan­u­ary 2017 — bailiffs and police have moved in at Upton Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion camp, in Cheshire.

12th Jan­u­ary 2017 — bailiffs and police have moved in at Upton Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion camp, in Cheshire.

The anti-frack­ing com­mu­ni­ty there has been going strong for a long time now and is at the fore­front of com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance to this nation­al threat.  Get along to help if you can, and sup­port peo­ple to keep resist­ing at least until Sat­ur­day, when there’s a nation­al day of action there already set.

Updates at https://twitter.com/earthfirst_uk and how to get to the camp here

J16 Upton

he government’s grand ges­ture of ‘clos­ing coal’ is con­di­tion­al on replac­ing it with gas. Frack­ing is a key part of that vision, but it’s meet­ing with resis­tance at every step.

The government’s grand ges­ture of ‘clos­ing coal’ is con­di­tion­al on replac­ing it with gas. Frack­ing is a key part of that vision, but it’s meet­ing with resis­tance at every step.

Upton is the country’s longest stand­ing com­mu­ni­ty pro­tec­tion camp. It’s due to be evict­ed any day now so that test drilling for uncon­ven­tion­al gas can start.

Lets put a red line around the UKs frack­ing front line. On Jan­u­ary 16th, from 10am- 4pm. If the camp is still in situ we can help build an excit­ing new defence and show our sol­i­dar­i­ty with the com­mu­ni­ty. If it’s been evict­ed and the drill is present there’ll be cre­ative ways to get in the way. This will be a fam­i­ly friend­ly event with some­thing for every­one.

http://www.nodashforgas.org.uk/event/j16-upton/

Hambach Forest, Germany: Ecodefenders blockade several targets in Europe’s largest open-cast mine

The last week­end saw a series of block­ades, that halt­ed work in sev­er­al parts of the Ham­bach open-cast-coal-mine.

8.10.15

The last week­end saw a series of block­ades, that halt­ed work in sev­er­al parts of the Ham­bach open-cast-coal-mine.

On Sat­ur­day morn­ing, at around 2:30, sev­er­al peo­ple occu­pied on of the huge exca­va­tors and stopped it for sev­er­al hours.

One day lat­er, around the same time, four peo­ple stopped the two main con­vey­or-belts that are used to load the coal onto the trains, with one group climb­ing around on top of one, while the oth­er two peo­ple locked-on to the struc­ture of the oth­er. After being hosed with water for sev­er­al hours by angry mine work­ers, all peo­ple were evict­ed at around 11:00 and tak­en to the police sta­tion in Düren, where they were released about one hour lat­er, with­out giv­ing their iden­ti­ties.

On Mon­day morn­ing, again at around half past two, anoth­er group of peo­ple occu­pied on of the giant exca­va­tors, again being evict­ed a cou­ple hours lat­er and realeased with­out ID-check.

This was fol­lowed by jet anoth­er con­vey­or-belt block­ade, which was evict­ed more bru­tal­ly this time. One of the per­sons is still in police cus­tody.

It seems the police and the ener­gy com­pa­ny RWE are get­ting more and more annoyed by activists con­stant­ly slip­ping through the holes in their secu­ri­ty net.

For more infor­ma­tion check out: hambachforest.blogsport.de

Build gardens not prisons

The Reclaim the Fields Inter­na­tion­al Action Camp, attend­ed by 100–150 peo­ple

8.9.15

The cam­paign against a new mega-prison being built near Wrex­ham got a boost recent­ly when the Reclaim the Fields net­work held an action camp near­by.

The Reclaim the Fields Inter­na­tion­al Action Camp, attend­ed by 100–150 peo­ple, ran from 28th August to the 2nd Sep­tem­ber 2015 and was host­ed by a local anti-frack­ing site. Work­shops explored the links between land strug­gles, prison abo­li­tion and oth­er issues includ­ing gen­der, ani­mal lib­er­a­tion and free­dom of move­ment.

Peo­ple held evening noise demos at three pris­ons in the region in sol­i­dar­i­ty with those inside, leaflet­ted the local town, and pick­et­ed sev­er­al com­pa­nies involved in the mega-prison. Final­ly a block­ade of the con­struc­tion site held up lor­ries for over 4 hours with­out any arrests.

As any­one with expe­ri­ence of them knows, pris­ons are abu­sive places used to con­trol and threat­en peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly those of us who are work­ing class, peo­ple of colour, or dis­obe­di­ent. We need jus­tice process­es based on strong, vibrant com­mu­ni­ties, not more pris­ons and cops harm­ing our com­mu­ni­ties.

The new prison would be the biggest in the UK, and the sec­ond biggest in Europe. It aims to open in 2017 and would give the State enough cages to lock up an extra 2100 peo­ple.

Mean­while, Robert King of the Ango­la 3 will give a talk on strug­gle and rev­o­lu­tion in the US prison sys­tem, on Wed 16 Sep in Dundee.

Com­mu­ni­ty Action on Prison Expan­sion | Reclaim the Fields UK | Gar­dens not Cages | Frack Free Wrex­ham | Bor­ras Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Camp