Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

London squatting news

Non Com­mer­cial House is Back!

Non Com­mer­cial House is Back!

The Non Com­mer­cial House was a squat­ted autonomous space on 165 Com­mer­cial Street, Lon­don, E1. The project  con­sist­ed of a giant Free Shop for peo­ple to share, recy­cle what they dont need and take what they need. After sev­er­al attempts that were resist­ed, the space was final­ly evict­ed on 30th Novem­ber 2009 by high court bailiffs, on behalf of the own­er The City of Lon­don. 

But the place has been tak­en back!! and on Sat­ur­day 16th of Jan­u­ary there was the Grand Re-Open­ing. Apart from the FreeShop itself and some free food and loads of cup­pas, there was also skill­shar­ing ses­sions and some music in the evening to enjoy the space at its best. [Event]

“We live in a soci­ety of over con­sump­tion and waste. Non Com­mer­cial House aims to offer an alter­na­tive based upon coop­er­a­tion, mutu­al respect and sus­tain­able liv­ing. It is not only about objects but about shar­ing!”

Address: 165 Com­mer­cial Street E1 (next to Bish­ops­gate, Liv­er­pool st tube sta­tion)
Email: noncommercialhouse..at..riseup.net
Web­site: http://london.indymedia.org.uk/groups/non-commercial-house

Chil­dren are very wel­come with­in the space. We are hop­ing to have a kids sec­tion of the free shop with free toys / clothes and hold fam­i­ly friend­ly events. The ground floor is wheel­chair acces­si­ble. How­ev­er, the only toi­let in the build­ing is on the top floor and not.

This is a non-prof­it, non-hier­ar­chi­cal space open to all and your input is val­ued so drop by some time to get involved and let us know what your ideas / thoughts are.

The Non Com­mer­cial House col­lec­tive

Email Con­tact: noncommercialhouse@riseup.net

——

100 flow­ers [Bel­grade Road] evict­ed
19 Jan­u­ary 2010

The 100 flow­ers squat on Bel­grade Road [Hack­ney] has been evict­ed this morn­ing

There were about 30 peo­ple out­side, and a num­ber of peo­ple inside the place which had been bar­ri­cat­ed.

Sev­er­al vans of riot cops came [in full gear] and even­tu­al­ly man­aged to remove the peo­ple out­side, before break­ing in and evict­ing the place.

No arrests that Im aware of.

Mainshill Eviction Date Given: Monday 25th January & research about expansion of open-cast mining in Britain

Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has received a reli­able tip-off that the site will be evict­ed on Mon­day the 25th of Jan­u­ary.

Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has received a reli­able tip-off that the site will be evict­ed on Mon­day the 25th of Jan­u­ary.

We’re tak­ing this tip-off seri­ous­ly and are prepar­ing to resist any attempts to remove us from the area. Main­shill has stood in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the local com­mu­ni­ty of Dou­glas for sev­en months and we’re not about to sur­ren­der to the wish­es of fat cat land­lords, scot­tish coal, or cor­rupt coun­cil­lors any time soon!

Please come help us defend the woods! Come to the pre-evic­tion Gath­er­ing and find out how to get involved

For more info: http://coalactionscotland.noflag.org.uk/

For more info about com­ing to site please ring 07806926040.

——

150 NEW OPENCAST MINES ON THE CARDS FOR THE UK BETWEEN NOW AND 2025 CLAIMS NEW REPORT FROM THE MINORCA OPENCAST PROTEST GROUP

To meet Britain’s ener­gy needs between now and 2025 a new study under­tak­en for the Minor­ca Open­cast Protest Group argues that they are unlike­ly to be the only local­i­ty in the UK to expe­ri­ence the prospect of an open­cast mine on their doorstep. This new report “Open­cast / Sur­face Min­ing: It’s Role in Pro­vid­ing UK Ener­gy Secu­ri­ty” sug­gests that ten new open­cast sites a year will need to gain plan­ning per­mis­sion between now and 2025, mak­ing 150 sites in all, if tar­gets to ensure Britain’s Ener­gy Secu­ri­ty are to be met. Using Gov­ern­ment and Coal Indus­try data the report high­lights the fol­low­ing:

• Most British coal is already pro­duced by open­cast meth­ods.

• In future, of an expect­ed 20m tonne British coal pro­duc­tion, 10 ‑12m tonnes ini­tial­ly is expect­ed to be from cur­rent and future open­cast mines, pos­si­bly ris­ing to a 100% open­cast pro­duc­tion in the 2020’s.

• How­ev­er there are no cur­rent pro­jec­tions for the need for coal if CCS tech­nol­o­gy does not prove itself to be viable prac­ti­cal­ly or com­mer­cial­ly.

• Nor do cur­rent esti­mates for the demand for coal take account of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of devel­op­ing new tech­nolo­gies that use coal such as Under­ground Coal Gasi­fi­ca­tion.

• Only sev­en deep mine are left work­ing in Eng­land.

• No new deep mine is like­ly with­out a pub­lic sub­sidy.

• Unless new invest­ment is under­tak­en the exist­ing deep mines have a lim­it­ed life and all could be closed by the end of the next decade.

• To ensure ener­gy secu­ri­ty, a mix of ener­gy sources includ­ing pre­dom­i­nate­ly open­cast British coal is need­ed accord­ing to the Gov­ern­ment.

• That the Coal Author­i­ty, respon­si­ble for pro­mot­ing and safe­guard­ing coal, argued in 2006 that to ensure ener­gy secu­ri­ty, 10 new ‘low impact’ open­cast mines would be need­ed a year for the fore­see­able future.

• In the opin­ion of those opposed to open­cast min­ing, by increas­ing­ly rely­ing on open­cast coal to pro­vide ener­gy secu­ri­ty for the UK the Gov­ern­ment are con­don­ing the cre­ation of new coal sup­plies by meth­ods which are not only extreme­ly envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive but will blight the lives of thou­sands of peo­ple over the next 15 years. Coal pro­duced by such meth­ods. ‘Clean’ coal? It is hard­ly that.

• Numer­ous areas of the UK are at risk of being the vic­tims of open­cast min­ing in the future, 9 coun­ties in Eng­land, 10 in Scot­land, 3 in Wales and 1 in North­ern Ire­land. In addi­tion 21 uni­tary author­i­ties across Eng­land Scot­land and Wales could also be affect­ed.

This, the sec­ond of MOPG’s Research Reports reach­es these con­clu­sions after under­tak­ing exten­sive research and analysing the results. It claims to be the first report of its kind on Britain’s Ener­gy Pol­i­cy writ­ten from the per­spec­tive of those who oppose open­cast min­ing.

Steve Leary, the Report’s author and MOPG Spokesper­son said

“This report demon­strates that those oppos­ing the Minor­ca appli­ca­tion in Leices­ter­shire are not just engaged in a ‘Nim­by’ issue. Oppos­ing the Minor­ca appli­ca­tion rais­es sig­nif­i­cant ques­tions about the future ener­gy pol­i­cy the Gov­ern­ment is being locked into – a grow­ing reliance on open­cast coal pro­duc­tion. MOPG is to ask the House of Com­mons Select Com­mit­tee on Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change to enquire fur­ther on the find­ings of this report and to ask ques­tions about whether cur­rent pol­i­cy is worth the des­e­cra­tion of 10 new open­cast sites a year for the fore­see­able future.”
Minorca Opencast Protest Group logo
This 32 page report can be down­loaded from the fol­low­ing web page:
http://www.leicestershirevillages.com/measham/mopg-reports.html
It will be avail­able on the MOPG web site short­ly at this site address
http://mopg.co.uk/MOPG-Research-Reports.php

Pre-Eviction Gathering! Sat 23rd to Tues 26th January

*A long week­end of action, work­shops and defence-build­ing in prepa­ra­tion for the evic­tion of the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp*

Pre-eviction gathering*A long week­end of action, work­shops and defence-build­ing in prepa­ra­tion for the evic­tion of the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp*

With the long-await­ed and high­ly-antic­i­pat­ed evic­tion of the camp sure­ly draw­ing clos­er, join us for the week­end (and as much time after that as you can spare!) to add the fin­ish­ing touch­es to defences, build new ones and for­ti­fy bar­ri­cades. Ever want­ed to build your­self a tree­house? Dig your­self a tun­nel? Make your­self a lock-on? Now is your chance!

We’re ask­ing any­one who wants to be a part of stop­ping this open cast coal mine, any­one who wants to fight cor­po­rate greed, cor­rupt gov­ern­ment and the feu­dal land own­er­ship, and any­one who wants to defend a com­mu­ni­ty from the self-inter­est of the few, to come to the camp and help us build a viable alter­na­tive to the destruc­tion that will oth­er­wise ensue.

Ask­ing nice­ly has failed. Its time to fight back!

What to bring:

* Warm clothes and water­proofs
* Sleep­ing bag

Tasty veg­an food will be pro­vid­ed, but bring any sup­plies you can. Any build­ing mate­ri­als, tools, climb­ing equip­ment, bed­ding or any­thing on our wish list you can spare please bring it along.

Direc­tions – http://coalactionscotland.noflag.org.uk/?page_id=415#How%20to%20Get%20There

http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk/

Coal Machinery Sabotaged in South Lanarkshire, Scotland

Late one night in ear­ly Jan­u­ary Pen­nile open cast coal mine was vis­it­ed by a num­ber of peo­ple who sab­o­taged machines. A total of 13 pieces of machin­ery were dam­aged, includ­ing one giant earth mover, six giant dumper trucks, four stan­dard sized earth movers and two flood light gen­er­a­tors.

Late one night in ear­ly Jan­u­ary Pen­nile open cast coal mine was vis­it­ed by a num­ber of peo­ple who sab­o­taged machines. A total of 13 pieces of machin­ery were dam­aged, includ­ing one giant earth mover, six giant dumper trucks, four stan­dard sized earth movers and two flood light gen­er­a­tors.

Recent­ly Pen­nile open cast fin­ished min­ing, but the machines Scot­tish Coal had work­ing there were sup­posed to be mov­ing to Main­shill Wood. How­ev­er as we all know Scot­tish Coal’s plans have been sub­stan­tial­ly dis­rupt­ed by the occu­pa­tion of the wood by the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.

This action was tak­en by autonomous peo­ple in sol­i­dar­i­ty with every­one who oppos­es the destruc­tion of Main­shill Wood and it’s devel­op­ment into anoth­er coal mine.

videos from Mainshill and German treesit against a proposed pipeline

The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp presents:

*Off With Their Heads!*

Hold­ing the politi­cians behind Main­shill Open Cast Coal Mine to account

Fea­tur­ing: Jim Hood MP, Karen Gillon MSP, Coun­cil­lor Dan­ny Meik­le and Lord Home

Snow and Anarchy at MainshillThe Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp presents:

*Off With Their Heads!*

Hold­ing the politi­cians behind Main­shill Open Cast Coal Mine to account

Fea­tur­ing: Jim Hood MP, Karen Gillon MSP, Coun­cil­lor Dan­ny Meik­le and Lord Home

This short film doc­u­ments the cor­rup­tion, con­flict of inter­est and hypocrisy dom­i­nat­ing the pol­i­tics of South Lanark­shire, that result in Scot­tish Coal receiv­ing approval for coal mine after coal mine in the Dou­glas Val­ley. With no regard for com­mu­ni­ty health, local democ­ra­cy, the envi­ron­ment or cli­mate change, Scot­tish Coal are allowed to run roughshod over the peo­ple of the Dou­glas Val­ley. The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp occu­pied the site of Main­shill Wood over six months ago to help local com­mu­ni­ties fight off Scot­tish Coal and the landown­er Lord Home.

The strug­gle con­tin­ues!

Watch it here: http://www.politube.org/show/23788

—

Since the 18.12.09 ROBIN WOOD-Activists squat sev­er­al trees in the Gäh­ler­park in Ham­burg Altona to impende the con­truc­tion of a heat­ing pipeline for the planned coal pow­er plant Ham­burg Moor­burg, which would mean the loss of the trees in the park. The com­pa­ny propos­ing the pipeline is Vat­ten­fall, a Swedish cor­po­ra­tion. With their protest they sup­port two res­i­dents who have squat­tet two trees already at 3rd of decem­ber.

(Ger­man with Eng­lish sub­ti­tles)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJeo631Pyv4

New Zealand climate camp report-back

15 Decem­ber 2009

15 Decem­ber 2009
NZ climate camp welcome tentPrepa­ra­tions for New Zealand’s first Cli­mate Camp are going well with peo­ple mov­ing onto the site yes­ter­day. Campers spent the day set­ting up some of the infra­struc­ture required for the camp includ­ing the kitchen and stor­age tents. As the day pro­gressed water lines could be seen snaking across the field, solar pan­els popped up next to tents and by the end of the day hot food was being pre­pared in the kitchen. The site is per­fect, large trees dot the field, a riv­er with swim­ming holes runs beside the camp and there is easy vehic­u­lar access.

NZ climate camp platformCli­mate camp offi­cial­ly kicks off tomor­row (Wednes­day) and will be going until the 21st. The camp will be a work­ing demon­stra­tion of sus­tain­able liv­ing with com­post­ing toi­lets and elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed on site. It will also host work­shops on dozens of sub­jects as well as pro­vid­ing space for peo­ple to organ­ise to take action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change. The 21st will see campers tak­ing to the streets in protests which will be organ­ised at camp. As details of these protests are organ­ised they will be dis­trib­uted wide­ly.

Feel free to bring any­thing you think might be use­ful – tools, bikes, koha to help pay for food and tents etc. The camp is being organ­ised and run by par­tic­i­pants so feel free to make it your own. If you want to run a work­shop or spend a few hours in the kitchen that would be great! Weath­er has been a mixed bag over the past day so a good tent and heaps of warm clothes in case you get wet would be a real­ly good idea. Food will be pro­vid­ed through­out the camp.

So if you have any spare time over the next week be it an after­noon or the entire camp pop on down to Moon­shine park in Upper Hut from today.

For more infor­ma­tion and reg­u­lar updates on how the camp is going please vis­it climatecamp.org.nz

For the days pho­tos please vis­it: http://www.flickr.com/photos/45638777@N08/

——
NZ Carbon Exchange conference disrupted
Activists dis­rupt pre­sen­ta­tion by head of the New Zealand Car­bon Exchange.
18 Decem­ber 2009

This action coin­cides with New Zealand’s first cli­mate camp in Upper Hut Welling­ton and pecedes mon­days day of direct action against false solu­tions planned for Welling­ton on mon­day.

Yes­ter­day mem­bers of Car­bon Progress Response (CPR) dis­rupt­ed a pre­sen­ta­tion by Stu­art Fraz­er mem­ber of the New Zealand Car­bon Exchange. The pro­test­ers dis­rupt­ed the meet­ing at three points hold­ing ban­ners say­ing “Our Cli­mate Not Your Busi­ness”, “Food Mar­kets Not Car­bon Mar­kets” as well as talk­ing about why car­bon trad­ing would not result in real action being tak­en to pre­vent cli­mate change. Dur­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion Stu­art Fraz­er talked of how we need to sta­bilise atmos­pher­ic CO2 lev­els at 450ppm and glob­al tem­per­a­tures at a 2 degrees Cel­sius rise. The pro­test­ers point­ed out that at these lev­els hun­dreds of mil­lions of the worlds poor will be affect­ed by drought and famine.

The action was tak­en in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the 100,000 pro­test­ers in Copen­hagen as well as the 300 civ­il soci­ety del­e­gates which walked out of the con­fer­ence.

The CPR activists involved in the dis­rup­tion explained their actions in this way “Car­bon trad­ing, also known as Cap and Trade, allows wealthy, indus­tri­al­ized coun­tries and com­pa­nies to keep pol­lut­ing at the same rates by trad­ing car­bon cred­its amongst them­selves. This allows busi­ness to con­tin­ue as usu­al and encour­ages the dis­ad­van­taged and poor to sell their liveli­hoods for the gain of the rich.”

After the first two groups of pro­test­ers were removed around a dozen pro­test­ers held ban­ners out­side as well as using a siren to empha­sis that we are fac­ing a cli­mate emer­gency. After the pre­sen­ta­tion had fin­ished an activist slipped back into the meet­ing and dis­rupt­ed it for a third time.

——
NZ climate camp march
21 Decem­ber 2009
About 150 peo­ple took to the streets ear­ly this morn­ing in Welling­ton as two ban­ners were hung overnight in promi­nent loca­tions. First stop was the Stock Exchange, to dis­rupt busi­ness as usu­al and tell the prof­i­teers of cli­mate change that our cli­mate is not their busi­ness. While peo­ple entered the build­ing a sam­ba band, rad­i­cal cheer­lead­ers and a kids block were out­side all main entrances. There was also a vocal bunch from a group claim­ing to be counter-protest­ing for the right to prof­it from exploit­ing the envi­ron­ment. Nine peo­ple were arrest­ed in a sit-in block­ade but lat­er released with no charge.

After 9 arrests the protest took over Lamp­ton Quay to go and sup­port two climbers occu­py­ing the out­side of the Min­istry for For­eign Affairs and Trade with a giant ban­ner denounc­ing Foter­ra for its part in New Zealand’s high emis­sions from agri­cul­ture. The action was tak­en to draw atten­tion to the fact that 51% of New Zealand’s cli­mate chang­ing emis­sions come from agri­cul­ture. The pro­test­ers who were ini­tial­ly at the stock exchange, marched down Lambton Quay to sup­port the two activists hang­ing off MFAT. The two climbers came down lat­er and were not arrest­ed. A Reclaim the Streets style protest con­tin­ued for over half and hour.

The nine from ear­li­er are com­ing out of the police sta­tion now, some or all with­out charge…

OUR CLIMATE IS NOT YOUR BUSINESS!!

http://climatecamp.org.nz/

Save Titnore Woods!

With the threat of devel­op­ment on Tit­nore Woods, one of the two remain­ing semi-ancient wood­lands left on the West Sus­sex coastal plain fast approach­ing, now is the time to rise up and resist the destruc­tion of our nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment by cor­po­rate greed.

With the threat of devel­op­ment on Tit­nore Woods, one of the two remain­ing semi-ancient wood­lands left on the West Sus­sex coastal plain fast approach­ing, now is the time to rise up and resist the destruc­tion of our nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment by cor­po­rate greed.

West Dur­ring­ton Con­sor­tium, which con­sists of Per­sim­mon Homes, Tay­lor Wimpy and Heron Homes could be giv­en the go ahead to build a 1250 home devel­op­ment and a road in the new year. Pre­vi­ous­ly 875 homes where to be built, so clear­ly their eyes are see­ing more pound signs as they envi­sion more clear­ance of the pre­cious land. The project is esti­mat­ed to cost over 3 bil­lion pounds to build and take 6 years to com­plete which is utter mad­ness when Wor­thing is report­ed to have over 1000 emp­ty build­ings! If plan­ning per­mis­sion is grant­ed West Dur­ring­ton will no longer home a semi- ancient wood­land with it’s rich diver­si­ty in rare species, flo­ra and fau­na or it’s sur­round­ing farm­land but a mas­sive hous­ing devel­op­ment, road, a giant Tesco and pos­si­bly 2 schools and a health cen­tre.

Already the destruc­tion is evi­dent when you vis­it Tit­nore. Just across the field from the protest site the eye sore that will be Tesco is well under way and is due to open in February/March 2010. West Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil gave per­mis­sion on Decem­ber 9th 2009 to close the pub­lic foot­path reach­ing Tinore woods from Full­beck Avenue. No per­sons are allowed to use this right of way to vis­it the woods now as it is viewed as a pub­lic safe­ty haz­ard until the West Dur­ring­ton Con­sor­tium project is com­plet­ed. Also trees and bush­es have been cleared here, although none are of the semi ancient woods this is still a haunt­ing reminder that con­struc­tion is immi­nent.

On Thurs­day Jan­u­ary 28th 2010 at 6pm the West Dur­ring­ton Con­sor­tium will meet at Wor­thing Bor­ough Coun­cil’s Con­trol Com­mit­tee to push for per­mis­sion to begin devel­op­ment. If they win then it’s full steam ahead for the bull­doz­ers and a very sad day for the hard work­ing folk of Camp Tit­nore who have occu­pied the woods in resis­tance of the destruc­tion for the last 3 and a half years, and also for the local Wor­thing res­i­dents who strong­ly oppose the plans and wish to see their ancient wood­land left stand­ing.

To show that you oppose their plans to tear down an irre­place­able nat­ur­al space come and join the counter demo at 5.30pm out­side Assem­bly Hall, Stoke Abbott Road, Wor­thing on Jan­u­ary 28th 2010.
Please vis­it Camp Tit­nore. Enjoy its beau­ty, help to build new defences and walk­ways. Dona­tions of wood, nails, polyprop and cor­ru­gat­ed iron would be much appre­ci­at­ed.

Camp Tit­nore needs you!

See Tit­nore con­tact links for direc­tions and so on

Mainshill Celebrates 6th Month of Resistance! Come celebrate with us over Christmas!

Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp will cel­e­brate its 6th month of resis­tance against Scot­tish Coal and fat cat inter­ests this Fri­day the 18th of Decem­ber!

Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp will cel­e­brate its 6th month of resis­tance against Scot­tish Coal and fat cat inter­ests this Fri­day the 18th of Decem­ber!

The win­ter is draw­ing in, but the tem­po­rary autonomous tree sit at Main­shill is warmer and cosier than ever! With a new log cab­in com­mu­nal and wood burn­ing stove there’s nowhere bet­ter to spend x‑mas than in the ice encrust­ed woods in the com­pa­ny of deer, robins, and oth­er wildlife whose habi­tat is slow­ly being defor­est­ed by Scot­tish Coal.

Join us this week­end to cel­e­brate 6 months of occu­pa­tion in resis­tance to a new open cast coal mine in an area already blight­ed by sev­er­al such devel­op­ments.

Direc­tions

Bus­es run to Dou­glas from Lanark and Hamil­ton. Both Lanark and Hamil­ton have train and bus sta­tions and are easy to get to from either Glas­gow Cen­tral Train Sta­tion or Buchan­non Street Bus Sta­tion. From South of the bor­der, going to Glas­gow is the eas­i­est way to get to Dou­glas. Bus­es from Lanark to Dou­glas are much more fre­quent!

Bus from Lanark:

The Ser­vice Num­ber 9 (William Stokes & Sons) runs from Lanark – Gle­spin, stop­ping in Dou­glas (ser­vice every 49mins past each hour). Ask to be dropped of out­side the camp – dri­vers are usu­al­ly hap­py to do this. Oth­er­wise, get off at the Egger­ton Bridge stop just before Dou­glas – you’ll see the camp on your left just after the M74 under­pass!

Bus from Hamil­ton:

The X50 (Hen­der­son Trav­el – http://www.henderson-travel.co.uk/) Hamil­ton-Gle­spin runs Hamil­ton, Inter­change – Les­ma­hagow, Church Hall – Rig­side – Dou­glas, leav­ing Hamil­ton at 17:05 (one ser­vice per day)

From Dou­glas:

The bus will stop before Dou­glas at Egger­ton Bridge and you will see the camp on your left after the M74 under­pass. If you miss this stop get off in Dou­glas and walk North East back up the A70 for 1km and the camp will be on your right just before the M74.

Hitch­ing:

If you hitch, the camp is right next to the M74 which runs from Glas­gow to Carlisle. Get dropped of at junc­tion 12 and walk South West down the A70 towards Dou­glas and the camp is a few hun­dred metres on your left. Hap­pen­don ser­vices are close to junc­tion 12 – if you end up there­walk South down the B7078, turn right onto the A70 towards Dou­glas, which takes you under the M74 and as above.

If you need a ride…

…from some­where close by call the site phone and we’ll try to sort you out.
Con­tact Us

Call the site phone on: 07806926040

Email us on: mainshill@riseup.net

Black Cat Occupied social centre evicted and Reoccupied!

Yes­ter­day saw the evic­tion of the Black Cat Cen­tre, a squat­ted social cen­tre that for 3 months became a gen­uine­ly well used and val­ued com­mu­ni­ty resource, involv­ing hun­dreds of local peo­ple in var­i­ous capac­i­ties. The evic­tion was met with a 17 strong sol­i­dar­i­ty demo, but no resis­tance from the inside as the evic­tion came slight­ly ear­li­er than expect­ed.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -

Yes­ter­day saw the evic­tion of the Black Cat Cen­tre, a squat­ted social cen­tre that for 3 months became a gen­uine­ly well used and val­ued com­mu­ni­ty resource, involv­ing hun­dreds of local peo­ple in var­i­ous capac­i­ties. The evic­tion was met with a 17 strong sol­i­dar­i­ty demo, but no resis­tance from the inside as the evic­tion came slight­ly ear­li­er than expect­ed.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -

Fol­low­ing the evic­tion of the Black cat Cen­tre yes­ter­day, the build­ing has been re-squat­ted. Local activists and res­i­dents, act­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the recent­ly evict­ed Black Cat squat­ters last night squat­ted the build­ing again, and intend to con­tin­ue oper­at­ing it as The Black Cat Social Cen­tre. Speak­ing to Bath Activist Net­work last night, one of the new squat­ters, a res­i­dent of Old­field Park, said ‘The work that the orig­i­nal Black cat squat­ters put into the social cen­tre was so inspir­ing, and such a ben­e­fit to the com­mu­ni­ty that we felt that we had to act, and re-open the social cen­tre to the com­mu­ni­ty for as long as pos­si­ble’.

This lat­est devel­op­ment means that own­ers Cabot will have to re-insti­gate court pro­ceed­ings to evict the new squat­ters. The occu­piers last night said that, as with the last occu­piers, they were keen to enter into a rent pay­ing agree­ment with Cabot in order to keep the space in com­mu­ni­ty use for as long as pos­si­ble.

The new squat­ters intend to have the Black Cat, with all of its pre­vi­ous uses and events run­ning by Fri­day morn­ing.

For more infor­ma­tion, or for an inter­view with the new squat­ters, call 07794774938
bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk

Contractor’s van sabotaged at Mainshill

On Wednes­day 16th, con­trac­tors parked in front of Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp returned to find their van sab­o­taged.

Mainshill van sabbedOn Wednes­day 16th, con­trac­tors parked in front of Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp returned to find their van sab­o­taged.

The Rae­burn work­ers turned up at 2.30 with the estate man­ag­er and left their vehi­cles unat­tend­ed while they took soil sam­ples with­in the camp. In less than ten min­utes, though the work van win­dows were smashed and ‘out of main­shill’ and ‘no more coal’ sprayed on the sides. A buck­et of com­post was tipped over the bon­net. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the estate man­ager’s 4x4 only got a small scratch.

The occu­pa­tion of Main­shill con­tin­ues, and we wel­come oth­ers who wish to join us in resist­ing open cast coal min­ing and the envi­ron­men­tal tox­i­fi­ca­tion it caus­es.