Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

Earth First! Summer Gathering, 4th — 9th Aug 2010, Derbyshire — location & programme announced/set-up plans & call-out

Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low-impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers.

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

For lat­est details, see http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/
Set-up plans & call-out
Loca­tion
Pro­gramme

EF! Summer Gathering poster 2010Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low-impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers.

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

For lat­est details, see http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/
Set-up plans & call-out
Loca­tion
Pro­gramme
Want to do some­thing to stop our plan­et from get­ting trashed?

EF! is about direct action to halt the destruc­tion of the Earth. It’s about doing it your­self rather than rely­ing on lead­ers, gov­ern­ments or indus­try. Direct action is at the heart of it, whether you’re stand­ing in front of a bull­doz­er, shut­ting down an open-cast mine or rip­ping up a field of GM crops.

We’re a loose net­work of peo­ple, groups and cam­paigns com­ing togeth­er for eco­log­i­cal direct action.

Join us for 5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions, run with­out lead­ers by every­one who comes along. The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of low-impact eco-liv­ing and non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing.

What’s hap­pen­ing?
Over 80 work­shops, dis­cus­sions, plan­ning, strat­e­gy and ‘where next’ ses­sions:

*Share and learn skills for kick-ass actions on land and water.
Small boat han­dling and blockad­ing using kayaks / Blockad­ing — tripods, lock-ons/ Fences / Climb­ing skills / Action recon­nais­sance / Secu­ri­ty for Activists / Strat­e­gy and tac­tics / How to research cor­po­ra­tions /

*Net­work cur­rent cam­paigns against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion
Open-cast min­ing / Genet­ic engi­neer­ing / Agro­fu­els / Sav­ing Ice­land / Cli­mate actions / Pipeline resis­tance in Ross­port / Anti-nuclear / Air­port expansion/ Tar Sands

*Think about eco-cen­tric ethics and alter­na­tive ways of organ­is­ing
Deep green ethics / Anar­chist eco­nom­ics / Anar­chist his­to­ry / Rad­i­cal Pol­i­tics / Work­ing with­out leaders/ Con­sen­sus deci­sion-mak­ing

*Prac­ti­cal skills for eco­log­i­cal restora­tion and sus­tain­able liv­ing.
Intro­duc­tion to Ecol­o­gy / Restora­tion ecol­o­gy / Flo­ra and Fau­na iden­ti­fi­ca­tion / Veg­an Cake mak­ing / Pow­er from solar and wind / wild food / Squat­ting / Bike main­te­nance

As well as inter­na­tion­al cam­paigns round-up, net­work­ing and plan­ning for future actions.

Cost and prac­ti­cal things
£20–30 accord­ing to what you can afford.
The gath­er­ing is in Der­byshire, the exact loca­tion will be announced the week before. More info on our web­site.

Find out more and join in!

Email us if you can offer a work­shop, want to help out with the gath­er­ing or if you would like posters and leaflets to dis­trib­ute.

We have now a stack of fresh­ly print­ed posters adver­tis­ing the gath­er­ing. If you’d like to send you some to stick up in your area or to take to events, fes­ti­vals and the like, please email us. Alter­na­tive­ly you can also down­load the files and print your own. They are fair­ly large files! EF! gath­er­ing poster (A4)

We are now look­ing for peo­ple to run work­shops and dis­cus­sions at the gath­er­ing. Please con­tact us if you can offer some­thing. Have a look at our pro­gramme page to see the kind of thing we’re look­ing for.

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ NOSPAM _ @ _ NOSPAM earthfirst.org.uk

Huntington Lane Fossil Fools Weekend roundup

As part of Fos­sil Fools Day West Mid­lands Cli­mate Action decid­ed to sup­port the Hunt­ing­ton Lane Camp against one of the UKs biggest Fos­sil Fools; UK Coal, who want to mine 900,000 tonnes of coal at Hunt­ing­ton Lane over a three-year peri­od. The main idea of the Fos­sil Fools week­end gath­er­ing was to get as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble down to the camp over the four days to help with the ongo­ing con­struc­tion of the camp. The 230-acre site near the foot of The Wrekin encom­pass­es part of the Shrop­shire Hills Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty and is also home to the pro­tect­ed sched­uled New Works Ancient Mon­u­ment. The Camp was set up three weeks ago in response to UK Coal felling trees which were part of ancient wood­land so they can build a haul road to link the two parts of the site togeth­er.

As part of Fos­sil Fools Day West Mid­lands Cli­mate Action decid­ed to sup­port the Hunt­ing­ton Lane Camp against one of the UKs biggest Fos­sil Fools; UK Coal, who want to mine 900,000 tonnes of coal at Hunt­ing­ton Lane over a three-year peri­od. The main idea of the Fos­sil Fools week­end gath­er­ing was to get as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble down to the camp over the four days to help with the ongo­ing con­struc­tion of the camp. The 230-acre site near the foot of The Wrekin encom­pass­es part of the Shrop­shire Hills Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty and is also home to the pro­tect­ed sched­uled New Works Ancient Mon­u­ment. The Camp was set up three weeks ago in response to UK Coal felling trees which were part of ancient wood­land so they can build a haul road to link the two parts of the site togeth­er.

Fossil Fools Weekend

A day before Fos­sil Fools Days saw the camp attacked dur­ing the night by three loud bangs, which it is thought came from some­one either throw­ing fire­works or an air bomb into the camp. The camp which includ­ed young chil­dren were ter­ri­fied after being wok­en up dur­ing the dead of night. One camper said

“It was ter­ri­fy­ing, real­ly ter­ri­fy­ing. It was in the dead of night, death­ly qui­et, and then all of a sud­den we heard these three thun­der­ous bangs quick­ly one after the oth­er.”

As a result of the attack a 24 hour watch has now been estab­lished at the camp

Huntington Lane Camp

The week­end saw a steady stream of peo­ple vis­it the camp which has now grown to include two com­mu­nal tip­is and a third shel­tered com­mu­nal area is under con­struc­tion which when fin­ished will have raised floor­ing.

Fri­day the 2nd April saw two cam­paign­ers hang a ban­ner from the famous Iron Bridge World Her­itage Site land­mark in view of thou­sands of Bank Hol­i­day vis­i­tors.

“We are try­ing to raise aware­ness. We are still find­ing a large amount of peo­ple do not know pro­pos­als for a coal mine are in exis­tence, let alone it being so close to an Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty.”

Over­all the mood at the camp is pos­i­tive but we still need as many peo­ple at the camp as pos­si­ble and any­thing you can donate would be appre­ci­at­ed. We still need Food, Water, Tarp, Ropes, Straw/Sawdust/Woodchips to soak up the mud a lit­tle and Walkie Talkies

http://wmclimateaction.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/fossil-fools-weekend-roundup/

Black Wood protest camp disappears over night to fight another mine, another day

2.4.2010
The Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp packed up the night before last and left the site of UK Coal’s new mine at Blair Farm, in Fife. The camp occu­pied the site for a week and a half to show UK Coal and oth­er mine oper­a­tors that no new mine or coal infra­struc­ture is safe and out of reach of pro­test­ers.

2.4.2010
The Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp packed up the night before last and left the site of UK Coal’s new mine at Blair Farm, in Fife. The camp occu­pied the site for a week and a half to show UK Coal and oth­er mine oper­a­tors that no new mine or coal infra­struc­ture is safe and out of reach of pro­test­ers.

The inten­tion of the camp from the begin­ning was to hold a short-term occu­pa­tion to bring atten­tion to the issue, make links with local com­mu­ni­ties and cost UK Coal mon­ey. The occu­pa­tion was a show of sol­i­dar­i­ty with local res­i­dents who opposed the mine, and with the cur­rent­ly occu­pied Hunt­ing­ton Lane open cast site in Shrop­shire.

One of the pri­ma­ry aims of the camp was to cost UK Coal mon­ey and make it more dif­fi­cult for the com­pa­ny to cause such destruc­tion in oth­er places. Dun­fermline Sher­iff Court would inevitably have grant­ed the sum­ma­ry evic­tion of the occu­piers today and, cou­pled with the fact that bailiffs from the Nation­al Evic­tion Team recent­ly vis­it­ed site, the camp had undoubt­ed­ly already hit UK Coal prof­its.

The camp was set up on Sun­day 21st March in protest against the dev­as­tat­ing effects of open cast coal min­ing. Impacts on near­by com­mu­ni­ties will include noise and dust pol­lu­tion, increased traf­fic on the roads through HGV move­ments, the loss of land­scape, local ecol­o­gy and bio­di­ver­si­ty, and loss of access to recre­ation areas, not to men­tion the increased rates of res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases and can­cer from expo­sure to coal dust. The min­ing of this coal will also release over 2 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 into the atmos­phere from com­bus­tion alone at near-by Lon­gan­net pow­er sta­tion, direct­ly con­tra­dict­ing the Scot­tish government’s tar­gets to reduce emis­sions.

As envi­ron­men­tal­ists, the camp occu­pants made sure to leave the site as they found it, undam­aged by their activ­i­ties. This was unlike UK Coal – with felling oper­a­tions com­plete, huge areas of birch and oak for­est – des­ig­nat­ed ancient wood­land – have been lost as well as the wildlife with­in it, which includ­ed nest­ing birds, bats and red squir­rels. On top of this, the camp is con­duct­ing an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion into alle­ga­tions, sup­port­ed by local wit­ness­es, that fire dam­age to Great Crest­ed Newt areas was car­ried out on behalf of UK Coal to facil­i­tate the newts forced migra­tion as a con­di­tion of plan­ning con­sent.

Fiona Coop­er from the camp said “We will be oppos­ing more open cast coal sites in Scot­land, as well as sup­port­ing oth­er com­mu­ni­ties fight­ing the unsus­tain­able and dam­ag­ing growth of the coal indus­try in the UK, such as the Hunt­ing­ton Lane protest site in Shrop­shire.”

The camp would like to thank the peo­ple of Oak­ley and sur­round­ing areas for their sup­port through­out the occu­pa­tion, and remind UK Coal of its oblig­a­tions to restore the site when it is fin­ished with it.

Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp
coalactionscotland@riseup.net
http://blackwood.noflag.org.uk/

Outdoor Skillshare//18–21 June, Scotland

**Please for­ward on to your net­works, if you would like some posters/flyers to dis­play, please get in touch**

///Outdoor Skillshare/// 18–21 June

An excit­ing week­end of work­shops and skill­shar­ing in rur­al Scot­land.

Come and learn:
climb­ing and rope access, build­ing tree hous­es, tun­nelling, cook­ing for the mass­es, knot-tying, fire-light­ing, wild foods and more!

**Please for­ward on to your net­works, if you would like some posters/flyers to dis­play, please get in touch**

///Outdoor Skillshare/// 18–21 June

An excit­ing week­end of work­shops and skill­shar­ing in rur­al Scot­land.

Come and learn:
climb­ing and rope access, build­ing tree hous­es, tun­nelling, cook­ing for the mass­es, knot-tying, fire-light­ing, wild foods and more!

At Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp we occu­pied land fac­ing destruc­tion. We lived out­side, grew as a com­mu­ni­ty and took con­tin­u­ous tar­get­ed action.
We want to focus on the skills need­ed to occu­py and defend land with a week­end long event bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er to learn and share the skills for liv­ing out­doors as a com­mu­ni­ty, build­ing defences, resist­ing evic­tions and think­ing about strate­gies for action.

These are trans­fer­able skills that can be tak­en away and used in a wide range of cam­paigns and actions.

This skill­share will be a safe, inclu­sive and par­tic­i­pa­to­ry envi­ron­ment for learn­ing new prac­ti­cal skills and is open to peo­ple of all abil­i­ties and expe­ri­ences. If you have any queries or spe­cial require­ments, please let us know — we will do our best to accom­mo­date every­one’s needs.

We will be ask­ing for dona­tions toward food and oth­er costs from those that can afford it.

If you want to find out more, or if you have skills you want to share then please con­tact us at: outdoorskillshare@riseup.net

//Workshop Timetable//

Fri­day
8:00–10:00 Break­fast
11:00 Work­shop Facil­i­ta­tor Drop-in (2 hours, 11–13:00)
12:00 Con­fi­dence Build­ing and Mutu­al Sup­port (1 hour, 12–13:00)
13:00- 14:00 Lunch
14:00 Deal­ing with Prob­lem Behav­iour and Encour­ag­ing Par­tic­i­pa­tion (1
hour, 14–15:00)
16:00–16:30 Tea Break
16:30 Trip to Main­shill (2 hours, 16:30–18:30)
18:30- 19:00 Wel­come Ses­sion
19:00 Din­ner
20:00 Pub Quiz
22:00 Music. Jam. Fire.
00:00 Bed­time

Sat­ur­day
8:00–10:00 Break­fast
9:30–10:00 Wel­come Ses­sion
10:00 Cook­ing for the Mass­es (3 hours, 10–13:00)
Fire Build­ing and Light­ing (1 hour, 10–11:00)
Tree climb­ing, gen­er­al rope access skills (2 hours, 10–12:00)
Tripods (2 hours, 10- 12:00)
12:00Tool Use and Care (1 hour, 12–13:00)
13:00–14:00 Lunch
14:00 Facil­i­ta­tion for Con­sen­sus (2 hours,14–16:00)
Over­com­ing Oppres­sion (2 hours, 14–16:00)
Tun­nelling (2 hours, 14–16:00)
Veg­an Bak­ing (2 hours, 14–16:00)
16:00 Tea Break
16:30 Legal Observ­ing (1.5 hours, 16:30–18:00)
Self Defence (1.5 hours, 16:30–18:00)
Site Electrics (1.5 hours, 16:30–18:00)
Tac­tics and Strat­e­gy for Defence (1 hour, 16:30–17:30)
18:00 Knots (1 hour, 18–19:00)
Pro­tect­ing Your Habi­tat inc. toi­lets (1 hour, 18–19:00)
Radios (1 hour, 18–19:00)
19:00–20:00 Din­ner
20:00 Films Talks, Craft Ses­sion
22:00 Open Mic
00:00 Bed­time

Sun­day
8:00–10:00 Break­fast
9:30–10:00 Site Meet-up
10:00 First Aid (3 hours, 10–13:00)
Herb and Plant Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (1 hour, 10–11:00)
Map read­ing and Nav­i­ga­tion for begin­ners (2 hours, 10–12:00)
Tree­house Build­ing (2 hours, 10–12:00)
13:00–14:00 Lunch
14:00 Blockad­ing for Begin­ners (2 hours, 14–16:00)
Fences – get­ting through, over etc. (2 hours, 14–16:00)
Tree climb­ing- advanced, Arbour­ing etc. (2 hours, 14–16:00)
15:00 Comms (1 hour, 15–16:00)
16:00 Tea Break
16:30 Drag­on Dynam­ics Empow­er­ment Skill­share (2 hours 16:30–18:30) Field
Plumb­ing (1.5 hours, 16:30–18:00)
Rec­ces (2 hours 16:30–18:30)
Tree climbing,general rope access skills (2 hours 16:30–18:30)
19:00–20:00 Din­ner
20:00 Music — Per­for­mances
00:00 DJ
03:00 Bed­time

Kids’ Work­shops

Sat­ur­day
10:00 Tree Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (2 hours, 10–12:00)
14:00 Tree Climb­ing for Kids (aged 10+) (2 hours, 14–16:00)

Sun­day
14:00 Con­sen­sus for Kids (2 hours, 14–16:00)
16:30 Clang, Bang, ShakeyShake, Crash! Mak­ing Instru­ments Out of Trash!
(2 hours, 16:30–18:30)

Lots more info at http://outdoorskillshare.noflag.org.uk

Eviction bosses show up at Black Wood as court hearing delayed

29.3.2010
Hours after the Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp suc­cess­ful­ly pushed back its evic­tion hear­ing at Dun­fermline Sher­iff Court this after­noon, mem­bers of the Nation­al Evic­tion Team includ­ing Mar­tin Leyshon, Head of Resources, vis­it­ed the site to doc­u­ment its defences and pre­sum­ably to begin the process of evict­ing the camp.

29.3.2010
Hours after the Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp suc­cess­ful­ly pushed back its evic­tion hear­ing at Dun­fermline Sher­iff Court this after­noon, mem­bers of the Nation­al Evic­tion Team includ­ing Mar­tin Leyshon, Head of Resources, vis­it­ed the site to doc­u­ment its defences and pre­sum­ably to begin the process of evict­ing the camp.

The Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is just over a week old so the appear­ance of the Nation­al Evic­tion Team at such short notice and before the evic­tion order for the site has even been grant­ed shows that UK Coal want rid of the camp as soon as pos­si­ble. Fur­ther still, the court papers are full of ref­er­ences to the recent­ly evict­ed Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, with police advis­ing UK Coal that the longer the camp exists, the hard­er and more cost­ly it will be to remove it.

And of course, they’re right, but num­bers mat­ter too. Please come and join the camp for as long as you can – even if just for a day, it will be great­ly appre­ci­at­ed. The vibe on the camp is good, with defence-build­ing and bar­ri­cad­ing hap­pen­ing all over the place with plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple to get involved and lend a hand. See here for details of how to get the the camp.

The hear­ing for the evic­tion order of the Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp will take place on Thurs­day 1st April at Dun­fermline Sher­iff Court at 14:00. Come down and show your sup­port for the occu­pa­tion if you can.

Final­ly, UK Coal have claimed that the occu­piers of Black Wood have caused fire dam­age to the site, dis­rupt­ed a Great Crest­ed Newt habi­tat and closed access to a foot­path. The Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp finds it iron­ic that a com­pa­ny about to pro­vide fuel to a coal-fired pow­er sta­tion, fan­ning the flames of cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change, caus­ing the forced migra­tion of a pro­tect­ed Newt species and trash­ing their habi­tat on site, and per­ma­nent­ly remov­ing a right of way for the dura­tion of the mine should accuse the camp of these things. The camp sug­gests that hypocrisy and deceit will get UK Coal nowhere.

Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp
coalactionscotland@riseup.net
http://blackwood.noflag.org.uk/

Eviction of protest camp against Very High Voltage (MAT) power lines, Catalonia

24/3/2010

24/3/2010
The camp was evict­ed from 7am; the spe­cial climb­ing evic­tion unit were fin­ished by 14:30. Var­i­ous police squads were deployed to keep every­one away from the evic­tion; when one per­son refused to give their ID, they were held until 18:00. The occu­piers all have to return to court on May 31 in San­ta Colo­ma de Farn­ers. At 20h there was a sol­i­dar­i­ty demo in Girona of about 100 peo­ple in the Plaça Catalun­ya.

With every­one who’s sup­port­ed this fight, it’s not yet over! The fight against major infra­struc­ture that cap­i­tal­ism impos­es on us con­tin­ues. Against this mod­el of soci­ety, against “progress” at all costs, against the MAT and down with cap­i­tal­ism!

Occu­pa­tion report
Des dels boscos web­site — http://desdelsboscos.blogspot.com/
Camp video — http://okupemlesones.blip.tv/file/3325444/
http://www.nomat.org/

Black Wood Solidarity Camp handed eviction papers

25.03.2010
This morn­ing a sher­iff offi­cer from Dun­fermline Sher­iff Court hand­ed the new­ly-estab­lished Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp its evic­tion sum­mons, with notice to appear in court on Mon­day morn­ing. Despite not mak­ing an appear­ance yet at the site, it is believed that UK Coal rep­re­sen­ta­tives met with Fife police on Mon­day to dis­cuss how to deal with the occu­pa­tion.

25.03.2010
This morn­ing a sher­iff offi­cer from Dun­fermline Sher­iff Court hand­ed the new­ly-estab­lished Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp its evic­tion sum­mons, with notice to appear in court on Mon­day morn­ing. Despite not mak­ing an appear­ance yet at the site, it is believed that UK Coal rep­re­sen­ta­tives met with Fife police on Mon­day to dis­cuss how to deal with the occu­pa­tion.

UK Coal has been very quick to begin court pro­ceed­ings against the camp and once again, as was the case with the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, the occu­piers have been giv­en very lit­tle time to respond.

As well as rush­ing court pro­ceed­ings, it is also thought that UK Coal rushed in its con­trac­tors deal­ing with the re-loca­tion of Great Crest­ed Newts, a Euro­pean Pro­tect­ed Specie, the day after the site was occu­pied. As part of the con­di­tions for plan­ning con­sent the newt pop­u­la­tion on site was sup­posed to have been moved before work began. How­ev­er, on Mon­day after­noon a con­voy of con­trac­tors arrived and appeared to start this work.

In addi­tion, an ecol­o­gist has been sur­vey­ing the site this week and told the camp that the work to move the newts was behind sched­ule. Once again, as was the case in Main­shill, eco­log­i­cal sur­veys and work relat­ing to sur­vey­ing the pres­ence of nest­ing birds, bats and oth­er species, is being car­ried out after felling and the destruc­tion of the sites ecosys­tems has begun. All of this high­lights the fact that coun­cils and min­ing com­pa­nies are mere­ly pay­ing lip-ser­vice to ful­fill­ing the legal require­ments in deal­ing with pro­tect­ed species and frag­ile ecol­o­gy, and how employ­ees of envi­ron­men­tal con­sul­tants such as RPS are noth­ing more than eco­log­i­cal box-tick­ers for the min­ing com­pa­nies.

Sup­port­ers and local res­i­dents have con­tin­ued to vis­it the camp and defences are being strength­ened in antic­i­pa­tion of the inevitable grant­i­ng of the evic­tion order on Mon­day. Come to the Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp and stop UK Coal trash­ing this site, the cli­mate and com­mu­ni­ty health!

Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp
coalactionscotland@riseup.net
http://blackwood.noflag.org.uk/

Site of New UK Coal Open Cast Mine Occupied in Fife — Black Wood solidarity camp update

Update below…
22nd March 2010: last night twen­ty five activists occu­pied the site of the Blair House Open Cast Coal Site in sol­i­dar­i­ty with near-by com­mu­ni­ties and in direct inter­ven­tion of the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion that it will cause. Con­trac­tors have been felling trees on the site over the past week, and activists have moved in to stop this work and put an end to UK Coal’s plans for min­ing the Black Wood Wildlife site.

Fife coal campUpdate below…
22nd March 2010: last night twen­ty five activists occu­pied the site of the Blair House Open Cast Coal Site in sol­i­dar­i­ty with near-by com­mu­ni­ties and in direct inter­ven­tion of the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion that it will cause. Con­trac­tors have been felling trees on the site over the past week, and activists have moved in to stop this work and put an end to UK Coal’s plans for min­ing the Black Wood Wildlife site.

This occu­pa­tion is the sec­ond occu­pa­tion of a UK Coal site in two weeks. The Defend Hunt­ing­ton Lane camp in Shrop­shire has been stop­ping work and felling for near­ly two weeks now [1]. This occu­pa­tion comes two months after the evic­tion of the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp in South Lanark­shire, where 45 arrests were made in an evic­tion that last­ed 5 days [2].

UK Coal have been giv­en per­mis­sion by Fife Coun­cil to mine 720,000 tonnes of coal from the site, a deci­sion that dis­re­gard­ed the wish­es of local res­i­dents. Near­ly 150 peo­ple object­ed to the plan­ning appli­ca­tion for this site and there were no let­ters of sup­port. The Coun­cil, in their defence, would­n’t dare refuse anoth­er open cast coal mine appli­ca­tion after their refusal of ATH Resources mine at Muir Dean on the insis­tence of Cross­gates res­i­dents, was over­turned by the gov­ern­ment and cost them finan­cial­ly.

The plan­ning process was designed to slip the mine past the major­i­ty of peo­ple liv­ing near it. As an exam­ple, the neigh­bour noti­fi­ca­tion for the mine only includ­ed res­i­dents liv­ing with­in 90 metres of the site bound­ary, which only real­ly involved noti­fy­ing a few Oak­ley res­i­dents liv­ing oppo­site the site entrance.

Impacts on near­by com­mu­ni­ties will include noise, dust, HGV move­ments, impact on the land­scape, ecol­o­gy, and loss of recre­ation access. The Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp stands in sup­port of near­by res­i­dents oppos­ing this mine and the inevitable oth­er mines that will be applied for by prof­it-hun­gry UK Coal.

The site is eco­log­i­cal­ly diverse and home to a pop­u­la­tion of Great Crest­ed Newts, a Euro­pean Pro­tect­ed Specie, the Black Wood Wildlife site, des­ig­nat­ed as an area that once had ancient wood­land and is now home to birch forests and oak trees, orchids, breed­ing birds and win­ter­ing birds, bats, red squir­rels and Brown hares, list­ed on the UK Bio­di­ver­si­ty Action Plan. The Cow­strand­burn riv­er will be divert­ed and undoubt­ed­ly pol­lut­ed, along with oth­er water­cours­es in the area.

Some 2.11 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 will be released into the atmos­phere from the com­bus­tion of the coal, with more still being released from the min­ing process. None of this will be cap­tured and stored. New coal mines such as this one under­mine the gov­ern­ments plans to reduce Scot­land’s CO2 emis­sions and high­light the hypocrisy of gov­ern­ment min­is­ters and local coun­cils when it comes to reduc­ing emis­sions.

Fiona Richards, one of the peo­ple cur­rent­ly occu­py­ing the site said, “This new coal mine is only one of 20 such oth­ers to have recent­ly been giv­en plan­ning per­mis­sion in Scot­land. If we are to have any chance of lim­it­ing dan­ger­ous cli­mate change and pro­tect­ing com­mu­ni­ties from car­bon-inten­sive indus­tries, direct action must be tak­en as coun­cil­lors, min­ing com­pa­nies and the gov­ern­ment have shown their unwill­ing­ness to solve the prob­lems we face.”

Press Con­tact: 07806926040

Notes to edi­tors:
[1] http://defendhuntingtonlane.wordpress.com/
[2] http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk/

Direc­tions, wish-list, back­ground info and more at http://coalactionscotland.noflag.org.uk/?page_id=1316

———

Sup­port for Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp need­ed — ancient wood­land being felled
24.3.2010
The wood­land was occu­pied last Sun­day as 25 activists blocked and bar­ri­cad­ed the access road using a scaf­fold­ing tri­pod, and took to the trees putting up nets, plat­forms and tree­hous­es.
Despite the occu­pa­tion, con­trac­tors have con­tin­ued to fell the birch and oak for­est, with occu­piers hav­ing to watch a huge oak being felled metres from the camp. The sound of chain­saws and machin­ery sur­rounds the occu­pied wood­land, with the forest­ed area get­ting small­er and small­er each day, despite the close prox­im­i­ty to dwellings, tents and tree defences. Sup­port and num­bers are need­ed at the camp.

Mean­while, local sup­port for the camp is grow­ing with near-by res­i­dents who opposed plans for the mine vis­it­ing the camp and offer­ing their sup­port. Oth­er vis­i­tors have includ­ed ever-increas­ing ranks of police offi­cers, includ­ing Glasgow’s V‑Division, the tac­ti­cal sup­port unit, who went around with a spot­ter card and video cam­era. There is still a per­ma­nent police “check­point” before the entrance to the camp, but they’re quite friend­ly and might even offer to dri­ve you to the bus stop if you’re lucky.

Look­ing out over the Firth of Forth from the site, over coun­try­side, old coal bings and min­ing com­mu­ni­ties, the Lon­gan­net smoke­stack looms in the dis­tance. ScottishPower’s Lon­gan­net coal-fired pow­er sta­tion is the sec­ond largest in the UK and the des­ti­na­tion for the coal from this site. Due to be “refur­bished”, this is the largest source of CO2 emis­sions in Scot­land and a tes­ta­ment to an archa­ic and dan­ger­ous ener­gy sup­ply.

For as long as places like Lon­gan­net burn coal, whether in Fife, South Lanark­shire or in Colom­bia, com­mu­ni­ties will have their health impact­ed, their land stolen and their envi­ron­ment trashed. The world’s ecosys­tems will con­tin­ue to col­lapse and species extinc­tion will con­tin­ue to spi­ral out of con­trol. Unless, that is, we make a stand. This occu­pa­tion is the sec­ond occu­pa­tion of a UK Coal site in two weeks – and such direct action, root­ed in com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle, offers the only glimpse of hope that we have of stop­ping the whole­sale destruc­tion of the plan­et.

Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp
coalactionscotland@riseup.net
http://blackwood.noflag.org.uk/

Camp Cuckoo taken to court, and trees later felled

15 March 2010
Legal action has been start­ed to try to evict “Camp Cuck­oo” cam­paign­ers who are fight­ing a road scheme in Essex.

Pro­test­ers are camped on Pri­o­ry Cres­cent, Southend, oppos­ing a £5m Cuck­oo Cor­ner road improve­ment scheme on the bur­ial site of a Sax­on King.

Camp Cuckoo trees cut15 March 2010
Legal action has been start­ed to try to evict “Camp Cuck­oo” cam­paign­ers who are fight­ing a road scheme in Essex.

Pro­test­ers are camped on Pri­o­ry Cres­cent, Southend, oppos­ing a £5m Cuck­oo Cor­ner road improve­ment scheme on the bur­ial site of a Sax­on King.

Southend Bor­ough Coun­cil said court papers had been served on pro­test­ers.

The king has been dubbed the “King of Bling” after archae­ol­o­gists found gold at the 8th Cen­tu­ry site and an ear­li­er protest camp was named after him.

Pro­test­ers have put up six tents at Cuck­oo Cor­ner round­about — at the oppo­site end of Pri­o­ry Cres­cent where the pre­vi­ous camp, dubbed “Camp Bling”, was set up five years ago.

‘Sig­nif­i­cant dis­rup­tion’

The coun­cil said the Cuck­oo Cor­ner scheme aimed to improve the flow of traf­fic at one of the town’s worst bot­tle­necks.

Lor­raine But­ler, inter­im head of enter­prise, said: “The aim of the legal pro­ceed­ings is to take back pos­ses­sion of the land so we can begin work.

“The pro­test­ers have no right to be there and their actions have already caused sig­nif­i­cant dis­rup­tion.

“Peace­ful protest is every­body’s right in a demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety but any action that hin­ders the progress of the approved scheme is not accept­able.

“Their actions have left us with no alter­na­tive but to resort to legal pro­ceed­ings to ensure we can progress with the scheme.”

18th March 2010 — pos­ses­sion order grant­ed to coun­cil in the morn­ing, pro­tes­tors leave site in after­noon.
Main­stream videos: 1 | 2

20th March 2010 — trees felled from 8am-noon, with bailiff team present but no oppo­si­tion to deal with in trees, and Charge­crest Secu­ri­ty to keep peo­ple away

-> “Sat­ur­day was hor­rif­ic and we are still try­ing to come to terms with what we saw and the way we were goad­ed and ridiculed and phys­i­cal­ly and ver­bal­ly abused all day by the Coun­cil’s hired yobs. How­ev­er, we know that we reached a great num­ber of the pub­lic who were dri­ving past and see­ing the ter­ri­ble things that the Coun­cil and its thugs were doing and they way in which we were con­duct­ing our peace­ful protest. We had so much sup­port from the pub­lic and we are still stand­ing and will re-group and fight on even stronger than before. If it had­n’t been for SKIPP and our protest, the Coun­cil would’ve got away with this ter­ri­ble destruc­tion rel­a­tive­ly scott-free so I real­ly believe that we turned a ter­ri­ble tragedy into a small vic­to­ry and we are even more deter­mined now to con­tin­ue our fight to get those evil, cor­rupt “peo­ple” out of pow­er.”

Video from tree-chop­ping day — pro­tes­tors trac­tor-dive

TAKE ACTION – SAVE THE BLACK CAT COMMUNITY SOCIAL CENTRE

TAKE ACTION – SAVE YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY CENTRE

TAKE ACTION – SAVE YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY CENTRE

For 5 months the Black Cat Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre has been pro­vid­ing a free, inclu­sive space for com­mu­ni­ty events. It has host­ed open mic nights, poet­ry ses­sions, yoga and dance class­es, debt advice cen­tres, meet­ings and many more events based upon demand and all free of charge – all have been keen­ly tak­en up by the peo­ple of Bath. This project is run by full-time vol­un­teers using aban­doned build­ings oth­er­wise going to waste. The coun­cil, in its infi­nite wis­dom, has decid­ed that this kind of bla­tant altru­ism and com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty must come to an end before the peo­ple start expect­ing the coun­cil to pro­vide a decent ser­vice, and as such are send­ing bailiffs in to evict us so that the River­side Stu­dios may once again stand emp­ty gath­er­ing dust.

THE BLACK CAT NEEDS YOU!

The first evic­tion attempt is expect­ed this Fri­day 26nd March at 10:00am. We WILL be resist­ing this evic­tion attempt. This is OUR com­mu­ni­ty and we should not be afraid to stand as the peo­ple against pow­er-hun­gry politi­cians, fat­cats, cops and bailiffs. This is a call to the peo­ple of Bath to stand tall with the Black Cat Col­lec­tive. To receive updates and the all-impor­tant evic­tion alert please send a blank text to 07529 579 130.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO GET ARRESTED TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT

A large crowd out­side the build­ing demand­ing that the cen­tre be allowed to remain sends a very strong mes­sage to the coun­cil. There are also many vital non-arrestable street roles includ­ing:

Grab­bing sup­plies
Arrestee Sup­port
Legal Observ­er
Media Liai­son
Mak­ing lots of noise
Bring­ing all your mates

If you wish to get involved in any way, please come knock on our red front door! Unit 3A, for­mer River­side Busi­ness Park, Low­er Bris­tol Road, Bath, BA2 3DW.