Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

Coal Action Scotland InfoTour dates

The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is going on tour! Check our list of dates below to see if we’re com­ing any­where near you. If you’d like us to to a talk where you are and its not on the list, email us at main­shill [at] riseup.net and we’ll get back to you as soon as pos­si­ble.

10th March
Brighton
7pm at the Cow­ley Club
Lon­don Road

The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is going on tour! Check our list of dates below to see if we’re com­ing any­where near you. If you’d like us to to a talk where you are and its not on the list, email us at main­shill [at] riseup.net and we’ll get back to you as soon as pos­si­ble.

10th March
Brighton
7pm at the Cow­ley Club
Lon­don Road

12th March
Leeds
7pm at the Band­stand Com­mu­ni­ty Allot­ments
Wood­house Ridge, Mean­wood Road
15th March
Brad­ford
7pm at the 1 in 12 Club
21–23 Albion Street

16th March
Lan­cast­er
7pm at the Lan­cast­er Action Resource Cen­tre
78a Pen­ny Street

Lappersfort Forest Evicted

5th March -
Yes­ter­day morn­ing the Brugge police force emp­tied Lap­pers­fort For­est. All envi­ron­men­tal activists who had chained them­selves into tree hous­es and tun­nels have been tak­en. Five police­men have been injured.

Lappersfort treesLappersfort graffiti5th March -
Yes­ter­day morn­ing the Brugge police force emp­tied Lap­pers­fort For­est. All envi­ron­men­tal activists who had chained them­selves into tree hous­es and tun­nels have been tak­en. Five police­men have been injured.
The threat­ened land is the prop­er­ty of Fab­ri­com and has been ful­ly occu­pied since Sep­tem­ber 2008. Peace talks with the own­ers and a judge over the 3.2 hectares of land (Which has plans to be turned into indus­try and office ground) had been entered into to reach an agree­ment but had failed.

The activists chained them­selves to the trees in the morn­ing and chant­ed slo­gans as large num­bers of police mobilised and entered the for­est. 30 police con­sta­bles cor­doned off the area while 20 oth­ers — with spe­cial­ist con­trac­tors — worked to remove the activists.

Accord­ing to a spokesman for the Brugge police force 25 peo­ple have been obtained. Because some of the activists did not want to give their iden­ti­ties, immi­gra­tion con­trol has become involved. One activist has been tak­en to a prison on an immi­gra­tion mat­ter.
The activists who gave their iden­ti­ties will be released after 12 hours.
A large num­ber of trees were cut down in a short space of time. The tree hous­es were also removed. Accord­ing to the police, by yes­ter­day evening 80% of the area to be ‘devel­oped’ had been laid flat.

“Fab­ri­com claim the social impor­tance of serv­ing the com­mu­ni­ty and try to give them­selves a green image” Says for­est activist Robin “What they do in real­i­ty is put prof­its before nature and the pop­u­la­tion, of India the Ama­zon Rain­forests and in Bel­gium. We find the increase of this type of mega-multi­na­tion­al par­tic­u­lar­ly upset­ting. They claim to be green, but where we see a for­est, they see pure­ly a spec­u­la­tion ground.”

—

4.3.2010
The evic­tion of the Lap­pers­fort has start­ed. At 7h55 today, the police entered the for­est. Police is all over the for­est and a cher­ry-pick­er is in front of the for­est.

13 peo­ple have been arrest­ed while 1 remains locked on to what seems to be a 400kg con­crete block. 1 of the arrest­ed occu­piers has been trans­port­ed to jail as they are believed to either be involved in an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion or be ille­gal in the EU.

The evic­tion is almost end­ed. One activist is still in the fortress. The lock-on team is busy with open­ing the lock-on. It seems to be a 400kg armed, extra-strong con­crete.

There is a sol­i­dar­i­ty action on the cor­ner where 4 peo­ple pushed through the police lines but were imme­di­ate­ly arrest­ed.

Back­ground at http://lappersfort.freehostia.com/en/background.htm

Livesey Occupiers Re-Open Community Museum

1.3.2010
Fam­i­lies flock to the Livesey Muse­um for the re-open­ing of the for­mer chil­dren’s muse­um to mark two years since South­wark Coun­cil shut the build­ing down

Livesey1.3.2010
Fam­i­lies flock to the Livesey Muse­um for the re-open­ing of the for­mer chil­dren’s muse­um to mark two years since South­wark Coun­cil shut the build­ing down

It was a wet Sun­day morn­ing in South Lon­don as com­mu­ni­ty activists scur­ried round the beau­ti­ful Livesey muse­um on the Old Kent Rd, putting the final touch­es to the space for a free fam­i­ly fun­day.

Police had called the occu­piers the day before stat­ing their intent to arrest peo­ple open­ing the build­ing, for bur­glary. After being being told that such arrests would be ille­gal, they rang back to say they would shut the build­ing down on grounds of health and safe­ty, and also take details of any­one going into the build­ing . If details were refused, the indi­vid­ual would be arrest­ed. Again ille­gal police work.

The fire ser­vice arrived at 11, and gave the thumbs up for the build­ing to be used.

And then sud­den­ly the fam­i­ly rush began!

———-

Two years ago South­wark coun­cil shut the Livesey down as part of a bud­get cut. The cost of run­ning the build­ing was less than mon­ey spent on coun­cil lunch­es. The coun­cil then tried to sell the build­ing only to find that in the deeds George Livesey left the Livesey for the peo­ple of Peck­ham and Cam­ber­well. As a trustee they had no right to sell it.

After a com­mu­ni­ty cam­paign to save the chil­dren’s muse­um by the Friends of Livesey, the coun­cil accept­ed a pro­pos­al from The­atre Peck­ham to use the space for rehearsals. Two years lat­er noth­ing had hap­pened in the build­ing.

And so it was occu­pied six weeks ago by a group who want to see the build­ing used by the com­mu­ni­ty.

A pub­lic meet­ing was held with 40 peo­ple and there was con­sen­sus to hold a re-open­ing for local fam­i­lies.

After two weeks of orga­niz­ing fam­i­lies flocked from all around to attend the day of activ­i­ties: veg­etable grow­ing work­shops, a trea­sure hunt, sto­ry­telling, arts and crafts, a the­atre work­shop and bicy­cle main­te­nance.

Around 80 peo­ple attend­ed, and the kids had a ball espe­cial­ly on the trea­sure island. The muse­um came back to life, and was placed back into use for its orig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ty pur­pose.

Around 2.30pm the fire ser­vice returned to see what we would do if there was a fire. They walked around to see every­thing was fine and then let every­one play on the fire engine. Hoses and sirens went off, and there was a new activ­i­ty for the event.

One police, and a com­mu­ni­ty police­man turned up and hang around at the gate for a while, after being refused entry after ask­ing to see inside for poten­tial crime. So the phone calls the day before seemed to be an attempt at intim­i­da­tion.

So the Livsey Muse­um was shut to the com­mu­ni­ty two years ago, and yes­ter­day the com­mu­ni­ty re-opened it, to have a bril­liant day with the fire ser­vice being co-opt­ed into the fun.

With a court date immi­nent, we will see what hap­pens next at the Livesey but for now it is re-open and in the hands of the com­mu­ni­ty.

Lappersfort Forest Occupation expected to be evicted this week!

Updates Thurs­day 4th: the evic­tion has begun since this morn­ing; it is still unclear how far the evic­tion is going, and if there are still peo­ple present to resist. this night at 8pm man­i­fes­ta­tion in Bruges, at ‘t Zand.

Updates Thurs­day 4th: the evic­tion has begun since this morn­ing; it is still unclear how far the evic­tion is going, and if there are still peo­ple present to resist. this night at 8pm man­i­fes­ta­tion in Bruges, at ‘t Zand. Wednes­day 3rd: yes­ter­day, the fed­er­al police was seen in the neigh­bour­hood of the Lap­pers­for­est. Sev­er­al peo­ple were chased when they want­ed to leave or enter the for­est. There is con­stant patrolling in the sur­round­ing of the for­est. At this moment (Wednes­day 8:00), every­thing seems qui­et in the for­est.

The evic­tion is still expect­ed to hap­pen this week.

—

Accord­ing to a very reli­able source, the occu­pied part of the Lap­pers­for­est will be cut down this week. We don’t know the exact date (yet), but the evic­tion and chop­ping will prob­a­bly start at the begin­ning of the week. (This week!) Anoth­er indi­ca­tion is the fact that police have vis­it­ed the for­est three times last week.

What can you do?
— come to the for­est as soon as pos­si­ble
— pre­pare sol­i­dar­i­ty actions
— pre­pare actions at branch offices of GDF Suez, Fab­ri­com, Elec­tra­bel…
— send dis­pleased reac­tions to press and oth­er media.

If you come to join the evic­tion resis­tance, bring a rain­coat, warm clothes, a sleep­ing bag and maybe some blan­kets.

If you can’t make it to the inside of the for­est, come to the green bridge of Steen­brugge (on the road from Oost­kamp to Bruges), where there will be protest actions from the very start of the evic­tion. At night we gath­er at 8 pm on ‘t Zand in Bruges, for a demon­stra­tion.

No com­pro­mise in defence of the Earth!

–
http://lappersfort.freehostia.com

- E‑Mail: mgriks(at)gmail.com Web­site: http://www.ourmediaindymedia.blogspot.com

Camp Bling back up and awaiting chainsaws — chopping on Sunday?

27.2.2010
Impor­tant Update

Cuckoo Corner tent27.2.2010
Impor­tant Update

6pm — so far, so good at Camp Cuck­oo; food dona­tions com­ing in but still need more peo­ple; lat­est twit­ter updates on PPPS web­site below or SKIPP face­book page.

Var­i­ous sources have now con­firmed that the Coun­cil will be felling the trees on Pri­o­ry Cres­cent dur­ing Sun­day. The affect­ed stretch of Pri­o­ry Cres­cent is going to be closed to traf­fic between mid­night and 8pm Sun­day.

There will be peo­ple climb­ing the trees to pre­vent them being felled — if you feel up to it, please vol­un­teer! We also need as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble on the ground to lend sup­port, wit­ness the Coun­cil’s, pri­vate secu­ri­ty and Police’s actions and so on.

Please come down to lend your sup­port. Peo­ple have been cam­paign­ing against this road widen­ing since 1972 and it’s all com­ing to a head tonight.

Addi­tion­al from SKIPP: Urgent notice — help need­ed NOW! Tree felling begins tonight in Pri­o­ry Cres­cent, any­one who can please come down to site, your help is des­per­ate­ly need­ed, if pos­si­ble please can­cel what ever you are doing, it is now or nev­er, pas­sive or active, you can help save the trees if we act togeth­er NOW… SKIPP Com­mit­tee Con­tact: 07799414887 — mark 07747755205 — pat­sy Please let us know if you can help.

—-

After years of patient occu­pa­tion and appar­ent vic­to­ry, Southend activists have had to reoc­cu­py land to pre­vent the coun­cils new road build­ing scheme. Evic­tions are expect­ed immi­nent­ly and crew are urgent­ly need­ed.

Southend Bor­ough Coun­cil has reneged on the agree­ment made last April with Bling and Park­life which result­ed in an agree­ment with the res­i­dents to vacate the site.

Local Group SKIPP has since been cam­paign­ing to pre­vent the revised plan from becom­ing a real­i­ty, last week SKIPP joined force with Park­life, and Blingers to occu­py a site in Pri­o­ry Cres­cent with a view to pre­vent­ing tree felling which is due in the next few days.

This morn­ing a source with­in the Coun­cil informed us, that tree felling and evic­tion is now immi­nent.

Sup­port is urgent­ly need­ed, the site is sit­u­at­ed in Pri­o­ry Cres­cent on land adja­cent to the Cuck­oo Cor­ner Round­about; by car head into Southend using the A127, fol­low­ing the town cen­tre signs, by train the near­est sta­tion is Prit­tlewell on the Liv­er­pool Street Line.

(for back­ground please refer to: www.campbling.org / www.ppps.org.uk / on face­book search for Sax­on King In Pri­o­ry Park.

Lim­it­ed accom­mo­da­tion is avail­able on site in the form of tents, please bring warm cloth­ing and harness/lock on gear if poss, same old things need­ed; peo­ple, climb­ing gear/lock on gear, her­ras fenc­ing, scaff bar/clips, kit and dona­tions.

On Fri­day a coun­cil meet­ing was halt­ed for 20 min­utes fol­low­ing protests over the new plans.

Faslane noise demo & Free Cafe (every first Saturday each month)

Every first Sat­ur­day of the month we’ll be hold­ing a noise demo at the base.

With work­shops, after­noon kids space, dis­cus­sion groups and free cafe at the camp.

For those want­i­ng to stay longer there will be a film-screen­ing and action meet­ing on Sun­day.

Any­one is wel­come to come along and get involved!
Call us for infor­ma­tion on this or oth­er upcom­ing events

Every first Sat­ur­day of the month we’ll be hold­ing a noise demo at the base.

With work­shops, after­noon kids space, dis­cus­sion groups and free cafe at the camp.

For those want­i­ng to stay longer there will be a film-screen­ing and action meet­ing on Sun­day.

Any­one is wel­come to come along and get involved!
Call us for infor­ma­tion on this or oth­er upcom­ing events
Would be good to see old friends, and is also a great way to see camp if you’ve nev­er been before.

Direc­tions -

The camp is sit­u­at­ed 6 miles North of Helens­burgh. Helens­burgh can be reached from Glas­gow by train, for £5 return, trains leave every half hour from Glas­gow Queens Street (Low lev­el station).Or the 216 from Jamaica St — Helens­burgh.
You can catch the 316 bus from Helens­burgh Cen­tral train sta­tion (for Coul­port or Gare­loc­head, stops out­side the camp) it only costs £1:50, and you can ask to be dropped off at the peace camp.

-F.P.C. is on the east verge of the A814 road, which leads to HMNB Clyde and beyond. The Camp is there­fore vis­i­ble to all traf­fic com­ing towards the base from the direc­tion of Helens­burgh.

We are about 30 miles west of Glas­gow, by the Gare­loch, a riv­er Clyde estu­ary sea loch. Faslane Naval Base is on the Gare­loch.
CAMP PHONE 01436820901

Faslane peace camp
faslaniapeacecamp@yahoo.co.uk

Open Day at the Tesco Occupation, Bristol

Feb­ru­ary 24 2010
To cel­e­brate the sec­ond week of occu­pa­tion and get peo­ple involved in the space we are hold­ing an open day at the Tesco occu­pa­tion this Sun­day. Please come along!

Feb­ru­ary 24 2010
To cel­e­brate the sec­ond week of occu­pa­tion and get peo­ple involved in the space we are hold­ing an open day at the Tesco occu­pa­tion this Sun­day. Please come along!

We are hold­ing a Freeschool from 12 til 4. At 5 o’clock there will be Com­mu­ni­ty Bin­go, and at 6 o’clock a meal will be served. Hope­ful­ly we will also be show­ing films and run­ning a free cafe. We will also be launch­ing a Veg­Box scheme. Please feel free to come along and bring all of your friends!

Tesco’s lawyers have already issued court pro­ceed­ings against us and are try­ing every trick in the book to get us out — from send­ing round the heav­ies with sledge­ham­mers to infil­trat­ing our meet­ings (they have admit­ted to doing this and they are using evi­dence from these meet­ings in their court pro­ceed­ings!).

Hope­ful­ly Sun­day be a fun and fam­i­ly-friend­ly invi­ta­tion to the local com­mu­ni­ty to reclaim their space and take con­trol of it them­selves. None of us want to see the multi­na­tion­als take over Stokes Croft!

AUTONOMY NOT MONOPOLY

For more info call 07794894353 or drop by at any time (knock loud­ly!). See the fol­low­ing vids for a peek inside and out..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsolppofJIo&feature=related
http://stokescroft.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/tesco-squat-a-short-film-from-inside-former-jesters/

To read about the squat­ting of the build­ing, read this

New eco village starting soon in London

20.02.2010
Fol­low­ing the evic­tion threat to Kew eco vil­lage, there will be a new eco vil­lage set up in Lon­don. A new site has already been locat­ed. Peo­ple are need­ed to help set it up. A cou­ple of oth­er sites have also been locat­ed in case the cho­sen site gets blocked off before we can occu­py it. No details of the loca­tion can be giv­en at this stage.

20.02.2010
Fol­low­ing the evic­tion threat to Kew eco vil­lage, there will be a new eco vil­lage set up in Lon­don. A new site has already been locat­ed. Peo­ple are need­ed to help set it up. A cou­ple of oth­er sites have also been locat­ed in case the cho­sen site gets blocked off before we can occu­py it. No details of the loca­tion can be giv­en at this stage.

Full details of the site will be post­ed on here with­in a cou­ple of weeks when the eco vil­lage is set up. But first peo­ple are need­ed to help out with it.

Con­tact diggers360@yahoo.co.uk for more details and to get involved.

Bath Black Cat occupied social centre moves again!!

15.2.10
For 6 months, the Black Cat has been pro­vid­ing Bath with a lib­er­at­ed com­mu­ni­ty space fea­tur­ing a rad­i­cal library, freeshop, cafe, debt advice cen­tre, and dozens of film nights, meet­ings, activ­i­ties and work­shops .

15.2.10
For 6 months, the Black Cat has been pro­vid­ing Bath with a lib­er­at­ed com­mu­ni­ty space fea­tur­ing a rad­i­cal library, freeshop, cafe, debt advice cen­tre, and dozens of film nights, meet­ings, activ­i­ties and work­shops .

UPDATE — After a brief stay at 63 West Avenue, the Black Cat, Baths only occu­pied social cen­tre has moved on to a big­ger and bet­ter build­ing. The loca­tion will be secret for the next week or so, but to get involved in help­ing pre­pare the space, or to drop by and check it out, drop us an email at bathsocialcentre@googlemail.com and keep check­ing out the Black Cat blogspot (www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com) for more info.

Bath Bomb #27 Out Now

THE BATH BOMB

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #27
free/donation
Feb 10

“I Can’t Believe It’s Not Bet­ter!”

B&NES Cuts It Fine

THE BATH BOMB

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #27
free/donation
Feb 10

“I Can’t Believe It’s Not Bet­ter!”

B&NES Cuts It Fine

In the ongo­ing saga of B&NES Coun­cil’s job-cut­ting bonan­za, plans have been revealed to go on a mas­sive redun­dan­cy spree, start­ing in April. Since the Bath Bomb got hold of con­fi­den­tial doc­u­ments and blew B&NES’ axing plans out of the water back in Novem­ber, they have been try­ing to gloss over and deny what will be a mas­sive attack on pub­lic sec­tor employ­ees and ser­vice users alike. It now appears that the cuts will come in three stages: pre­sum­ably a poor attempt at mak­ing the redun­dan­cies and ser­vice slash­es seem less numer­ous, start­ing in earnest this spring. In the mean­time, we have to sat­is­fy our­selves with 70 imme­di­ate redun­dan­cies, affect­ing sev­er­al key depart­ments of the coun­cil. In April, the attacks will be switched up a gear, with 400 loss­es planned. To add insult to injury, those work­ers lucky enough to keep their jobs will suf­fer a pro­posed two-year pay freeze being dis­cussed at West­min­ster (agreed on by all three main­stream par­ties) to recoup costs after their mates, the bankers, pissed the econ­o­my down the drain. 

Unsur­pris­ing­ly, redun­dan­cies so far won’t affect mid­dle or high man­age­ment, but are instead aimed at the ground-lev­el work­ers who pro­vide us with ser­vices and sup­port. Work­ers that remain in their depart­ments will also be expect­ed to shoul­der the work­load of their for­mer col­leagues. Coun­cil work­ers have told the Bath Bomb that if the planned redun­dan­cies go ahead, it will be lit­er­al­ly impos­si­ble to run their depart­ments or pro­vide any com­pe­tent ser­vice to the pub­lic, as many of the job cuts affect work­ers with very spe­cif­ic skills and abil­i­ties, and depart­ments would be left too under­staffed to be fit for pur­pose. This lat­est round of attacks on coun­cil work­ers is cou­pled with mount­ing plans to pri­va­tize our pub­lic ser­vices and slash the effec­tive­ness of what remains. 

With this only being stage one of a three-pronged attack, we are left won­der­ing what will be left of our pub­lic ser­vices by the time B&NES have fin­ished maul­ing them. It’s not all doom and gloom though, with local activists, com­mu­ni­ty groups and unions gear­ing up to fight back and defend our jobs, our ser­vices and our com­mu­ni­ties from the greed-dri­ven onslaught being unleashed on us by these politi­cians — watch this space for news on the fight­back!

Char­lie Gets Fat While He Tight­ens Our Green Belt

Yes, this just in — famous envi­ron­men­tal­ist and every­one’s least favourite jug-eared par­a­sit­i­cal tax drain Prince ‘Last Tan­go in Paris’ Charles has decid­ed to sell off part of his vast green belt estate to be used for new hous­ing. Around 2,000 new homes are planned for Bath, half of which are to be on Crown-owned lands around New­ton St Loe. Con­ve­nient­ly for­get­ting his sup­posed ‘green cre­den­tials’ for a sec­ond, Char­lie has shown his roy­al streak by being won over by mas­sive amounts of a dif­fer­ent type of green – cash.

Local oppo­si­tion groups have already sprung up in protest at the plans, which will see yet more of our trea­sured green spaces dis­ap­pear under con­crete. We would­n’t mind so much, were it not for the abun­dance of dis­used and dilap­i­dat­ed build­ings in Bath that sore­ly need ren­no­va­tion and could pro­vide homes for thou­sands. But once again, we are see­ing that the roy­al fam­i­ly, who only clawed their way to the top through blood­shed and greed, are no friends of ours. What real­ly wor­ries us here at Bath Bomb, how­ev­er, is once all the green fields have been con­cret­ed over, where are we going to take our hors­es and hounds when the time comes to stick a tail on Char­lie and his degen­er­ate ilk and chase them down?

Keep your ear to the ground, as more news of plans to fight the devel­op­ment are pop­ping up all the time, and with the impend­ing con­cret­ing of Bathamp­ton Mead­ows, we’ve got a prop­er fight to get stuck into to save the green spaces around Bath!

GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE?
Con­tact us by email­ing bathbombpress[at]yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions avail­able on request. And for more info on any of our sto­ries, check out http://www.thebathbomb.blogspot.com

In By The Cat­flap

The Black Cat, Bath’s best autonomous social space, is now up and run­ning again for the new year. The old Black Cat build­ing, on the Upper Bris­tol Road, was evict­ed late last year – and then almost imme­di­ate­ly reopened by a group of local res­i­dents. This new col­lec­tive ran the cen­tre until ear­ly Jan­u­ary, when the ‘own­ers’ of the build­ing used a back-door legal process to res­ur­rect their pre­vi­ous evic­tion order – despite such an act being fla­grant­ly unlaw­ful.

The two Black Cat col­lec­tives have now joined forces direct­ly to open a new cen­tre in Old­field Park. Sit­u­at­ed at the junc­tion of West Avenue and Cyn­thia Road, and mere min­utes from Old­field Park Sta­tion. Once again the cen­tre will house the Bath FreeShop, an exten­sive infos­hop (includ­ing copies of this fine pub­li­ca­tion), plus an inten­sive pro­gram of dance class­es, exhi­bi­tions, dub nights, debate clubs, film nights, cafes, open mic nights, and more. A suit­able venue is also being sought to hold a fol­low-up to the last cen­tre’s huge­ly suc­cess­ful ben­e­fit gig.

The Black Cat is open right now, unless you’re read­ing this between the hours of about 7pm and 1pm, and would love for you to drop by. They can be con­tact­ed at bathsocialcentre[at]googlemail.com, or on 07946 777609. The cen­tre is open most days from 1pm to 7pm, ear­li­er on Sun­days, and extra hours as need­ed for events.

http://bathsocialcentre.blogspot.com

Bath Activist Net­work are a local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce the Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to anar­chists, lib­er­als and greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter. For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, email bathactivistnet[at]yahoo.co.uk or see our web­site: http://www.bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com

Green Gueril­las Hit Bath

The last cou­ple of months have seen a num­ber of mys­te­ri­ous gar­dens spring­ing up in the Bath area, the most notice­able of these being an ongo­ing project on Park St, behind St James’ Square. The gar­den has been cre­at­ed by guer­ril­la gar­den­ers — peo­ple who, sick of see­ing use­able land left uncul­ti­vat­ed, have tak­en it upon them­selves to cre­ate more local food sources. They’ve cleared the over­grown area and plant­ed fruit trees and bush­es to feed the local pop­u­lace for free.

Any­one can be a gueril­la gar­den­er; just find a few seeds, a dis­used area and some mates, then pop along in a clan­des­tine fash­ion and plant your veg­gies. There are lots of dif­fer­ent rea­sons for guer­ril­la gar­den­ing — some peo­ple want to feed them­selves, some hope to pro­vide their com­mu­ni­ty with free and local veg, while oth­ers, such as the cheeky gar­den­ers who plant­ed gan­ja in the flo­ral dis­play at the police sta­tion a few years back, may have oth­er motives!

You don’t need to be part of a group or have much gar­den­ing expe­ri­ence to be a guer­ril­la gar­den­er, but if you want to hook up with a local group, check out the local Tran­si­tion Towns group at transitionbath[at]googlemail.com. Alter­nate­ly, there are oth­er com­mu­nal gar­den­ing schemes, such as the allot­ments in Vicky Park — with Bath peo­ple cul­ti­vat­ing more and more of the city every day, there’s nev­er been a bet­ter time to go green!

Wheely Good News

Cycling enthu­si­asts will be pleased to hear that Bath Cycling Cam­paign are relaunch­ing that old favourite, the Crit­i­cal Mass. A Crit­i­cal Mass is a cel­e­bra­tion of ped­al pow­er in which cyclists take to the streets en masse to high­light the fun and eco-friend­li­ness of the bicy­cle. It is a car­ni­va­lesque parade, so feel free to dress-up, dress down, or just dress plain old weird (non-fan­cy dress/ seri­ous ‘politi­co’ styles are are also wel­come!).

The Crit­i­cal Mass is a world­wide event that hap­pens reg­u­lar­ly in Barcelona, Lon­don and New York to name but a few, and is always great fun, so why not come and get involved? The last Bath Crit­i­cal Mass drew over 50 peo­ple and was a great suc­cess. The Mass is meet­ing at 1pm at Kingsmead Square on Sat­ur­day the 27th of March.

http://www.bathcyclingcampaign.org.uk

Smile, You’re On Cam­era!

In a humor­ous turn of events, the obnox­ious Bath police spy vehi­cle has got­ten itself into a spot of both­er recent­ly after being pho­tographed parked in a dis­abled-only space! While on her way out, a con­sci­en­tious mem­ber of the pub­lic manged to beat the cops’ per­son­al voyeur wag­on at its own game, snap­ping a few choice shots of the van in the dis­abled space. Bath police have since apol­o­gised and claimed that they were on “very urgent busi­ness“, but won’t say what; in oth­er words, they want­ed a bite to eat and felt above the law enough to deprive a dis­abled per­son of their spot while they went to get it.

So hope­ful­ly the sight of a few red-faced spy-cops will bring a smile to the face of all of us who hate police sur­veil­lance and the CCTV soci­ety, or just find it plain old irri­tat­ing that the cam-van’s threat­en­ing, sin­is­ter mot­to “smile, you’re on cam­era” is writ­ten in such a love­ly, friend­ly font!

EVENTS

Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs meet­ings, 2nd and 4th Mon­day of the month, 8pm, The Bell, Wal­cot Street

Free sam­ba danc­ing class­es, Mon­days, 7–8pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Debt advice drop-in, Tues­days, 4–7pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Lon­don Road Food Co-op, Wednes­days, 4–7pm, River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Lon­don Road

The Lost Plot work­day, Thurs­days, 10am-dusk, Bathamp­ton

Bath Stop The War Coali­tion vig­il, Sat­ur­days, 11.30am-12.30, Bath Abbey Court­yard

Recy­cle Your Sun­days, Sun­days, 10.30am, starts Abbey Church­yard, the reg­u­lar series of socia­ble, easy-paced cycle rides, http://www.bathrys.org.uk/ Hazel 01225 469199

Black Cat Cen­tre gen­er­al meet­ing, Sun­days, 1–3pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Antifas­cist ben­e­fit punk/ska/hip-hop gig, Fri­day 12th Feb­ru­ary, doors open 6.30pm, £6 entry, the Croft, 117–119 Stokes Croft, Bris­tol, fea­tur­ing La Frac­tion, Left For Dead, Jakal and Reject­ed,
http://libcom.org/news/gentle-bonecrusher-life-death-ivan-khutorskoy-17112009

Orchard Man­age­ment Work­shop for all lev­els of expe­ri­ence, Sat­ur­day 13th Feb­ru­ary, 10–3.30pm, the Vine House, Bail­brook Lane, Sols­bury Hill, Bath, £15 includ­ing light lunch, book with Jim Dowling/e‑mail piltonman[at]googlemail.com/ tel 01225 481500

‘Incor­po­rat­ing Cli­mate Change into your Com­mu­ni­ty-Led Plan­ning Process’, Sat­ur­day 13th Feb­ru­ary, 11–4pm, Brunswick Room, the Guild­hall, Bath, re-mail sara_grimes[at]bathnes.gov.uk

Bath FreeShop, Sat­ur­day 13th Feb­ru­ary, 12–3pm, out­side Pump Rooms, Stall Street

Broad­lands Orchard­share Vol­un­teer­ing Day, Sat­ur­day 13th Feb­ru­ary, 12–4pm, Broad­lands Orchard, Box Road, Bath­ford, http://www.bathford.net/broadlands.php

Allot­ment Fair, Sat­ur­day 13th Feb­ru­ary, 2–5pm, the Guild­hall, Bath, e‑mail alotta_thingsgoingon[at]yahoo.co.uk/ tel 01225 332246

EVICT THE BAILIFFS! Punk and folk ben­e­fit gig, Sat­ur­day 13th Feb­ru­ary, The Plough, Eas­t­on, Bris­tol, fea­tur­ing KilnAboy, The Autono­mads, Har­i­jan and Hack­saw

AWE Alder­mas­ton block­ade, Mon­day 15th Feb­ru­ary, start­ing 7am, there is already a car­load going from Bath (4 am start)

Bath Cycling Cam­paign meet­ing, Mon­day 15th Feb­ru­ary, 7.30pm, the Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street, http://www.bathcyclingcampaign.org.uk

Talk by Alas­tair McIn­tosh: ‘Engag­ing the Pow­ers’, Mon­day 15th Feb­ru­ary, 7.30pm, 3rd Floor, Bush House (above the Arnolfi­ni) 72 Prince Street, Bris­tol, BS1 4QD, £3 entry, http://www.ecoshow.org.uk

Work­shop: ‘Com­mu­ni­ty Ben­e­fits of Renew­able Ener­gy’, Tues­day 16th Feb­ru­ary, 6–9pm, Coun­cil Cham­ber, The Hol­lies, Mid­somer Nor­ton, e‑mail sara_grimes[at]bathnes.gov.uk/ tel 01225 477548

Tue 16 Feb — Tran­si­tion Film: ‘Hawaii: Mes­sage in the Waves’, Tues­day 16th Feb­ru­ary, doors open 7.15pm, the Min­er­va Cen­tre, 8 Combe Park, Low­er West­on, Bath BA1 3NP, http://www.transitionbath.org

‘Junk Poet­ry’ open mic night, Thurs­day 18th Feb­ru­ary, 7.30pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Camp for Cli­mate Action nation­al gath­er­ing, Fri­day 19th-Sun­day 21st Feb­ru­ary, Bridewell, Bris­tol

Tran­si­tion Bath open review: ‘How are we doing?’, Mon­day 22nd Feb­ru­ary, 7.15pm, back room of the Bell, Wal­cot Street, Bath, bring food to share, http://www.transitionbath.org

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 24th Feb­ru­ary, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Film: ‘Mat­wan’, Thurs­day 25th Feb­ru­ary, 7pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 3rd March, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

North Som­er­set Coun­cil Meet­ing on future of Bris­tol Air­port expan­sion, Wednes­day 3rd March, 6pm, Town Hall, West­on Super Mare, come along to the meet­ing and show coun­cil­lors your con­cerns, http://www.stopbia.com

Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, Thurs­day 4th March, 7.30–9pm, down­stairs at The Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade, http://www.bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com

Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing, Mon­day 8th March, 8–9pm, The Bell, Wal­cot Street

Exhi­bi­tion: ‘Loss of Inno­cence: Gaza Chil­dren’s Art­work’, Mon­day 8th March-Wednes­day 17th March (not Sun­days), most­ly 10–4pm, St John’ Church, Frome, ffi e‑mail adam.stout[at]virgin.net

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 10th March, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Bath Stop the War Coali­tion pub­lic meet­ing, Wednes­day 10th March, 7.30pm, Friends Meet­ing House, York Street, Bath

Bath Green Drinks, Wednes­day 10th March, 8pm, the Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street

Rad­i­cal debate club: ‘When envi­ron­men­tal­ism becomes fas­cism’, Thurs­day 11th March, 7–9pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 17th March, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Bath tree-plant­i­ng project day, Sat­ur­day 20th March, more details tbc

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 24th March, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Bath Crit­i­cal Mass, Sat­ur­day 27th March, 1pm start, Kingsmead Square

Trapese Col­lec­tive course: ‘Tools for Social Change’, train­ing in grass­root organ­is­ing for social change, Sat­ur­day 27th March-3rd April, Rag­man’s Lane Farm, For­est of Dean, £175-£350, lim­it­ed places avail­able so book ear­ly! http://www.stuffit.org/trapese/ragm.pdf

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 31st March, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 7th April, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Rad­i­cal debate club: ‘Rad­i­cal­ism & reli­gion’, Thurs­day 8th April, 7–9pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 14th April, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 21st April, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

World Day for Lab Ani­mals march in Lon­don, Sat­ur­day 24th April, coach 8.30am, leav­ing Bris­tol Tem­ple Meads, £10 tick­et

And now, to the dis­claimer: As any­one is free to con­tribute, the opin­ions expressed in each arti­cle are not nec­es­sar­il­ly reflec­tive of each con­trib­u­tor. Nat­u­ral­ly, any right-wing or cor­po­rate bull­shit will be binned and spat upon. Need­less to say, the opin­ions of the author of this dis­claimer do not nec­es­sar­il­ly rep­re­sent the views of any oth­er con­trib­u­tor.

Insane In The B&NES

Mean­while, back to oth­er news. The Save Bathamp­ton Mead­ows cam­paign to save, err, Bathamp­ton Mead­ows, recent­ly suf­fered a blow when B&NES Coun­cil gave them­selves per­mis­sion to pro­ceed with their four-stage Bath Trans­port Plan – includ­ing the wildlife-devour­ing Bus Rapid Tran­sit route, the expan­sion of two exist­ing Park & Ride schemes, and the sac­ri­fice of the Mead­ows to be glo­ri­ous­ly reborn as a new flood-prone P&R. The much-hat­ed A36/A46 link road plan still remains too, despite con­stant pub­lic denial. Though the Coun­cil’s com­plete lack of trans­paren­cy and demo­c­ra­t­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion (66% of Batho­ni­ans object­ed to the Bathamp­ton scheme in Nov 08) defied all expec­ta­tions, and the traf­fic con­ges­tion and air qual­i­ty ben­e­fits (less than 1%, accord­ing to gov­ern­ment stud­ies) of the plan are implau­si­ble at best, B&NES’ true motive is clear as glass: mon­ey. Yep, the £5.75 mil­lion car­rot of gov­ern­ment grant has got them all wet, and res­i­dents or the envi­ron­ment can fuck off.

In response, the sev­en-year strong SBM lot host­ed a packed-out com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing in Bath­eas­t­on on the 27th of last month. The cam­paign is now psych­ing them­selves up for a pin­cer attack legal chal­lenge, tak­ing first the Sec­re­tary of State to court, and then B&NES… if they can afford it. To this end the ‘protest com­pa­ny’ VeraC­i­ty Ltd have been formed, and with court costs expect­ed between £10,000 and £30,000 (with even the send­ing of a let­ter cost­ing £500, those solic­i­tors get pricey!) they are now eager for investors to share out the bur­den of a quid each. Para­dox­i­cal­ly, most of these chal­lenges take six years, but VeraC­i­ty are only being giv­en three months.

B&NES have now start­ed tend­ing out for con­struc­tion, spin and archi­tects con­tracts with which to waste their mon­ey. With luck, any info about com­pa­nies show­ing inter­est will come to light either on our own blogspot, or the SBM one.

Whilst we here in the office have some doubts on the effi­cien­cy of wad­ing through all that red tape, this, var­i­ous NIMBY legalese and Com­pul­so­ry Pur­chase Order court­room bat­tles could very well be the key to save the eco­log­i­cal­ly-impor­tant mead­ows. And if not, here’s to hop­ing the VC does­n’t lead the cam­paign away from its direct action com­mit­ments.

http://www.vcbath.blogspot.com
http://www.newbridgematters.blogspot.com
http://www.response2route.co.uk/wordpress/?p=221
http://www.savebathamptonmeadows.org.uk

A Cen­sor­ble Response To Islam4UK

A lot has been made late­ly of the antics of the pro-Sharia Mus­lim group ‘Islam4UK’ (a front group for Al-Muha­jiroon led by Anjem Choudary), who advo­cate the turn­ing of Britain into an oppres­sive Mus­lim state, com­plete with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and flog­ging for pub­lic drunk­en­ness (amidst a host of oth­er gems). They also recent­ly received noto­ri­ety for the gov­ern­men­t’s ban­ning of their pro­posed Woot­ton Bas­sett demo — the repa­tri­a­tion town for British war dead. White nation­al­ists were quick to con­demn the march, but you don’t have to be a flag-wav­ing skin­head to oppose these nut­cas­es.

Since the open­ing of hos­til­i­ties in Iraq and Afghanistan, var­i­ous groups have sunk to using the parad­ing of war casu­al­ties in Woot­ton Bas­sett as a pro­pa­gan­da tool. While some rev­el in the body count to pro­mote anti-west­ern sen­ti­ment, oth­ers like the BNP use coffins and griev­ing fam­i­lies to fly nation­al­ist flags. The truth, though, is that dead sol­diers are nei­ther heroes nor mon­sters – they’re sim­ply men and women who have paid a harsh price for doing the dirty work of cor­rupt politi­cians.

Real­ly, the BNP and Islam4UK are both a threat to the work­ing class, and pan­der to a polit­i­cal elite who desire only to see us divid­ed along their lines of race, reli­gion, gen­der and sex­u­al­i­ty, instead of class. Sure­ly we want to build a soci­ety based on tol­er­ance, respect and equal­i­ty, and must resist the author­i­tar­i­an regime envi­sioned by the far right? If so, then we need to wake up and treat these peo­ple — no mat­ter the colour of skin or the faith — like the fas­cists they are. And whilst we can’t con­done state con­trol and bans, it’s the job of our com­mu­ni­ties to crush them.

To Vote Or Not To Vote?

On Thurs­day the 11th of Feb­ru­ary, the Black Cat Cen­tre held a debate on the sub­ject of vot­ing. Should we vote? If so, for whom? If not, why not? I have been ask­ing around to get a feel of what peo­ple pass­ing through the cen­tre think, and the results are far from unan­i­mous. They range from not vot­ing as a cat­e­gor­i­cal imper­a­tive, to vot­ing for the Tories so the rev­o­lu­tion comes, with mid­dle-ground posi­tions as well, con­trast­ing nation­al elec­tion with local ones. The debate promised to be mighty inter­est­ing.

There is not enough space to explore this issue in depth, so I will use the lit­tle I have left to present the act of vot­ing under dif­fer­ent lights, which will hope­ful­ly allow us to have a con­struc­tive exchange. There can be two ends in vot­ing; vot­ing to rule the coun­try, and vot­ing to destroy the sys­tem. Those who pro­pose to vote, at least the ones I’ve spo­ken to, are refer­ring to the sec­ond one; and, you’ve prob­a­bly guessed, those who pro­pose that we don’t vote are refer­ring to the first; that is, some­one has yet to say that we should form a par­ty and win the elec­tions.

There is no dis­agree­ment, then, on the right to rule. It does­n’t exist. What the peo­ple I’ve spo­ken to dis­agree on is whether it does us any good, as an activist move­ment, that one par­ty or anoth­er is behind the wheel. Can it help us build the resis­tance? Or does vot­ing, as such, under­cut it?

Here EDO Again

For the last five years, Brighton-based bas­tards EDO/ITT have been the sub­ject of a con­cert­ed activist cam­paign ini­ti­at­ed when locals learned that EDO sup­plies the Israeli and US mil­i­tary with bomb release mech­a­nisms and oth­er nas­ties that have been used in Gaza, Iraq and else­where. Since the begin­ning of the cam­paign, EDO has been sub­ject to numer­ous protests, lock-ons, block­ades, van­dal­ism and oth­er actions and has seen their share val­ue plum­met, and gone through four direc­tors in as many years.

On Jan­u­ary the 18th, over 300 peo­ple gath­ered in Brighton to mark the first anniver­sary of the bom­bard­ment of Gaza that EDO made pos­si­ble. Through­out the day, activists, includ­ing Batho­ni­ans, dodged batons and police dogs to make their way to the EDO fac­to­ry, which they even­tu­al­ly did via a lit­tle-used foot­path. Upon the march reach­ing the fac­to­ry, sec­tions of the fenc­ing dis­ap­peared, allow­ing pro­test­ers entry to the site, where a brief skir­mish with the police ensued. From there, the demo, which by this point had been offi­cial­ly banned by the police, head­ed back into town to let Brighto­ni­ans know what grot­ty death mer­chants ped­dle their trade on their doorsteps. It was lat­er dis­cov­ered that, in antic­i­pa­tion of the protests, the fac­to­ry had been closed the entire day. To add to EDO’s finan­cial mis­ery, lat­er that night the fac­to­ry was vis­it­ed and heav­i­ly paint-bombed and lock-glued in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Gaza — not a bad day’s work! The cam­paign against EDO con­tin­ues, and you can find out more at http://www.smashedo.org.uk

In sup­port of the Brighton demo, BAN sup­port­ers and oth­ers pick­et­ed Bar­clay’s Bank in Bris­tol. Bar­clays was tar­get­ed because it is the main bank of arms com­pa­nies. 20 peo­ple gave out leaflets and held a ban­ner in sup­port of Eli­jah Smith, a Bris­tol-based anti-mil­i­tarist who has been remand­ed in cus­tody with­out a tri­al for a year fol­low­ing an event last year where EDO was sub­ject­ed to the sin­gle action that brought it clos­er to col­lapse. Sev­en ‘de-com­mis­sion­ers’ entered the fac­to­ry and destroyed almost every piece of equip­ment they could find. There has been a cam­paign to keep his spir­its up, includ­ing send­ing let­ters and gifts, and even loud gigs held out­side the nick by sup­port­ers! To send Eli­jah your sup­port, send him a let­ter at – Eli­jah Smith, VP 7551, Shep­pey Clus­ter (Elm­ley), Church Rd, Eastchurch, Sheer­ness, Kent, ME 12 4DZ.