Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

Black Cat Social Centre (Bath) To Be Evicted! — Wednesday, 16th December

Update: We’ve just received our evic­tion notice. The bailiffs are due around at 11am on this Wednes­day, the 16th Decem­ber.

Update: We’ve just received our evic­tion notice. The bailiffs are due around at 11am on this Wednes­day, the 16th Decem­ber. We des­per­ate­ly need peo­ple to help with resist­ing the evic­tion, either to be in the house and be dif­fi­cult to remove, or to film the bailiffs to ensure com­pli­ance with the law, or to protest in sol­i­dar­i­ty out­side. This being Bath’s only autonomous social space, it’s impor­tant for us to send a mes­sage to the author­i­ties and landown­ers that they can’t just sweep us aside.

After a real­ly suc­cess­ful few months, the own­ers have decid­ed to try and evict the Black Cat social cen­tre — but the occu­piers have decid­ed not to go qui­et­ly. In the 3 months that it has been oper­at­ing, the black cat has been home to dance class­es, open days, a library, a cafe, film nights, a freeshop, a mas­sive ben­e­fit gig rais­ing hun­dreds for local caus­es and more — we are not going to let that go to waste because of cor­po­rate greed.

We des­per­ate­ly need peo­ple to help with resist­ing the evic­tion, either to be in the house and be dif­fi­cult to remove, or to film the bailiffs to ensure com­pli­ance with the law, or to protest in sol­i­dar­i­ty out­side. This being Bath’s only autonomous social space, it’s impor­tant for us to send a mes­sage to the author­i­ties and landown­ers that they can’t just sweep us aside.

The Social Cen­tre Col­lec­tive can be con­tact­ed at BathSocialCentre@Googlemail.com, or on 07794 774 938

We are plan­ning a peace­ful sol­i­dar­i­ty demo out­side the build­ing, as well as resis­tance inside. We have almost unlim­it­ed crash space, so come on down and help save a space that has become val­ued by local res­i­dents, activists or oth­er­wise.

You can find us at -
The Black Cat Cen­tre
7–10 Kel­so Place, upper bris­tol rd, Bath

Google map

—-

9.12.2009
The Black Cat, Bath’s only autonomous social space, has lost an extend­ed court bat­tle against Cabot Invest­ments, and is due to be evict­ed in the near future.

Being com­mit­ted to fight­ing the cur­rent sys­tem of land own­er­ship by any means we can, the Social Cen­tre col­lec­tive are hop­ing to get togeth­er the num­bers and exper­tise to resist the evic­tion for a while. If we can hold them off for a week, we reck­on their sale to a hous­ing devel­op­ment com­pa­ny will fall through! And if we hold them off for two weeks, Cabot will prob­a­bly go bust! Even though we prob­a­bly won’t keep the build­ing indef­i­nite­ly, this is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to flex the mus­cles of com­mu­ni­ty pow­er and send a clear mes­sage of “leave us alone” to the prop­er­ty-own­ing class­es of bath.

The cur­rent build­ing is a fan­tas­tic space, with pret­ty much unlim­it­ed crash space avail­able — although if you bring your own bed­ding it’ll help us accom­mo­date more peo­ple — and only fif­teen min­utes walk from the town cen­tre of Bath, where you can enjoy the tra­di­tion­al Bathon­ian pur­suits of gawk­ing at pigeons and despis­ing the tourists.

The Black Cat itself has gained alot of com­mu­ni­ty sup­port, with sev­er­al neigh­bours drop­ping by most days to express sup­port and ask ques­tions. We’ve had a fan­tas­tic ben­e­fit gig to raise mon­ey for the Postal Strike and the Bath Bomb (Bath’s best rad­i­cal freesheet), with more in the pipeline, and we also pro­vide a home to the Bath Freeshop and Rad­i­cal Lend­ing Library.

We’re cur­rent­ly wait­ing for a date for evic­tion, and will send out anoth­er call­out when we get one. If we can get half a dozen more peo­ple here after that then we can resist — and of course if we get more, we can resist more! So come on down; it’ll be way more fun than your mates are hav­ing in Copen­hagen…

The Black Cat Col­lec­tive
http://blackcatcentre.blogspot.com/
7–10 Kel­so Place, Upper Bris­tol Road, Bath (BA1 3AU)

Autonomous Pixie Action in Solidarity with Mainshill

In the ear­ly hours of Mon­day the 7th of Decem­ber a drilling rig and oth­er machin­ery was sab­o­taged at Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. This action was tak­en by a group of autonomous peo­ple in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who oppose the devel­op­ment of Main­shill Wood into an open cast coal mine.

In the ear­ly hours of Mon­day the 7th of Decem­ber a drilling rig and oth­er machin­ery was sab­o­taged at Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. This action was tak­en by a group of autonomous peo­ple in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who oppose the devel­op­ment of Main­shill Wood into an open cast coal mine.

Actions such as these are not mind­less acts of van­dal­ism, but valid respons­es to cor­po­ra­tions like Scot­tish Coal and their bla­tant dis­re­gard for life and com­mu­ni­ties of peo­ple every­where. Such acts dam­age the rich and wealthy in the only place that mat­ters to them – their wal­lets. As life on earth is threat­ened in every direct by the blind pur­suit of prof­it, we look not to politi­cians in Copen­hagen for inde­ci­sion, but take mat­ters into our own hands.

Burn­ing coal under­mines the very abil­i­ty of human beings to live on a healthy vibrant plan­et, a right our ances­tors enjoyed and our chil­dren should inher­it. Yet the cli­mate is chang­ing, the oceans are acid­i­fy­ing, and hun­dreds of species go extinct every sin­gle day because of the greed of a few. Let’s not stand idly by and watch while so much beau­ty is plun­dered and destroyed!

There is no time to act but now. Come to Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp and send your own mes­sage to Copen­hagen!

Another Successful Action-Packed Gathering at Mainshill Solidarity Camp

From Sat­ur­day 28th Nov – Tues 1st Dec there was anoth­er suc­cess­ful action-packed gath­er­ing at Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. With activists trav­el­ing from all over the UK, around 55 peo­ple con­verged on the camp and spent the week­end solid­i­fy­ing old defences, work­ing on new ones and stop­ping the log­ging work on site.

From Sat­ur­day 28th Nov – Tues 1st Dec there was anoth­er suc­cess­ful action-packed gath­er­ing at Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. With activists trav­el­ing from all over the UK, around 55 peo­ple con­verged on the camp and spent the week­end solid­i­fy­ing old defences, work­ing on new ones and stop­ping the log­ging work on site.

Har­vesters were stopped from chop­ping down trees and prepar­ing the ground for min­ing machin­ery on both Mon­day after­noon and Tues­day morn­ing. The har­vester dri­vers seemed hap­py to get a break and were friend­ly and chat­ty with the pro­tes­tors. There are now 3 har­vester machines work­ing on site rather than just the one which has been work­ing up until now, per­haps indi­cat­ing that the almost dai­ly actions to stop work have seri­ous­ly delayed the work of remov­ing trees at Main­shill in prepa­ra­tion for the mine.

Sat­ur­day night saw anoth­er leg­endary par­ty and gave every­one a chance to cel­e­brate some of the hard work done to solid­i­fy the defences in antic­i­pa­tion of an evic­tion. As well as all the work on defences, the com­mu­nal spaces were also improved with the instal­la­tion of a beau­ti­ful new burn­er in the com­mu­nal made espe­cial­ly for the camp and a lot of progress on the new kitchen exten­sion.

By Sun­day morn­ing there was news that an autonomous group of activists act­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who oppose the open cast­ing of Main­shill Wood had paid Lord Home a vis­it. Appar­ent­ly Home was at home down the road from the camp, win­ing and din­ing a group of chums, prob­a­bly in antic­i­pa­tion of a Sun­day of grouse shoot­ing. Reports on Indy­media state that “activists deflat­ed tyres on all of the posh ccars out­side the house, put super­glue on the wind­screens and left a sign on Home’s lawn say­ing ‘No Open Cast’.”

Climb­ing and bunker build­ing work­shops kept every­one busy on Sun­day as well as col­lect­ing wood to keep the camp going dur­ing these cold­er weeks. There was snow on Mon­day but every­one was in high spir­its after a real­ly good week­end of work.

Resist Eviction of Kings Crescent Estate 12pm Thursday (London N4)

Resist the evic­tion of a com­mu­ni­ty squat­ting ini­tia­tive 12PM on THURSDAY 3rd of DECEMBER. They are call­ing for as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to assem­ble at our place from Wednes­day night onwards. Num­bers mean vic­to­ry!

Com­mu­ni­ty Squat­ting Project Under Threat

What’s Hap­pen­ing?:

Resist the evic­tion of a com­mu­ni­ty squat­ting ini­tia­tive 12PM on THURSDAY 3rd of DECEMBER. They are call­ing for as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to assem­ble at our place from Wednes­day night onwards. Num­bers mean vic­to­ry!

Com­mu­ni­ty Squat­ting Project Under Threat

What’s Hap­pen­ing?:

The com­mu­ni­ty squat­ting project has come under yet anoth­er attack from
Hack­ney Coun­cil and the Police, this time in the form of an Anti-Social
Behav­iour Clo­sure Order. These orders, usu­al­ly used to evict crack hous­es
from com­mu­ni­ties, give the police pow­ers to evict prop­er­ty by force and to
make it a crim­i­nal offence to return to the build­ing.
As some of you may be aware, squat­ting in this coun­try is not a crim­i­nal
offence. If the own­ers of the prop­er­ty (in this case, Hack­ney Coun­cil)
want to evict squat­ters it is seen as a dis­pute between two pri­vate
par­ties and they must get a court order through the civ­il courts.
The com­mu­ni­ty squat­ting project on green lanes was opened spec­tac­u­lar­ly a
month or so ago, when a large group of peo­ple descend­ed upon a par­tial­ly
emp­ty block of flats and col­lec­tive­ly occu­pied, defend­ed, fixed up and
final­ly allo­cat­ed hous­ing to those in the group who need­ed it. Many of the
peo­ple there were first-time squat­ters, includ­ing a migrant fam­i­ly (with a
new­born baby) who had been denied social hous­ing.
Hack­ney coun­cil are keen to stamp out this kind of organ­ised squat­ting.
The legal route is not open to us here — the courts have said they can­not
hear an appeal against the clo­sure order until after Thurs­day (when the
evic­tion is due to take place). The only way for us to defend this project
and our abil­i­ty to take sim­i­lar action in the future, is through good old
fash­ioned force of num­bers. See you there.

They are to be evict­ed 12PM on THURSDAY 3rd of DECEMBER and are call­ing for
as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to assem­ble at our place from Wednes­day night
onwards.

ADDRESS: Lems­ford Court, Brownswood Road, N4 2XN

MAP

DIRECTIONS
The Com­mu­ni­ty Squat­ting Project is just oppo­site the gates of Clis­sold
Park on Green Lanes (Stoke Newington/Finsbury Park area). It is a large
block of flats with a grey steel door to the left. Enter through this
door.

UK Rossport Solidarity Gathering Feb 12–14th, Sumac Centre, Nottingham (incl.agenda)

Find out more about the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp in Co.Mayo, Ire­land & how to sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle against Shell in 2010.

Shell&BonesFind out more about the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp in Co.Mayo, Ire­land & how to sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle against Shell in 2010.

UK sup­port­ers of the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp are hold­ing a gath­er­ing at the Sumac Cen­tre in Not­ting­ham from the 12th-14th Feb­ru­ary. Any­one who has been active in the cam­paign or who would like to find out more is wel­come to join us for the week­end. There will be food by dona­tions & accom­mo­da­tion. We will be dis­cussing how to sup­port the strug­gle in Ross­port over the next year as the project moves to the on-shore pipeline stage.

The project has recent­ly been fur­ther delayed, with half of the pro­posed on-shore pipeline route deemed as pos­ing an unac­cept­able risk to the local com­mu­ni­ty. Shell have been asked by the plan­ning board to go away & design a new route by Feb­ru­ary. This will prob­a­bly go through the bay which they had pre­vi­ous­ly ruled out on envi­ron­men­tal & tech­ni­cal grounds.

There is still a lot of fight left in this cam­paign & works on a new route; if giv­en per­mis­sion prob­a­bly won’t start till June. That gives us lots of time to plan & pre­pare a sol­id resis­tance. The local com­mu­ni­ty need our help as much as ever so please come along to the gath­er­ing; meet peo­ple involved in the strug­gle & plot how to take on one of the biggest multi­na­tion­als in the world!!

www.indymedia.ie
www.shelltosea.com

Week­end Itin­er­ary.
Fri 12th: 12–5pm. Cycle car­a­van meet­ing. For those peo­ple inter­est­ed in help­ing to organ­ise a spring ride to Mayo around com­mu­ni­ties in Ire­land.
6pm: Intro­duc­tion to Shell to Sea & the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.
Sat 13th: 10–6pm. Main meet­ing to dis­cuss sup­port­ing the cam­paign both in the UK and the camp.
8pm ‑1am: Ben­e­fit night at the Sumac Cen­tre
Sun 14th: 10am onward. Brunch & space for infor­mal chats/more meet­ings

Veg­an food will be avail­able for dona­tions. Sleep­ing space also pro­vid­ed.
Tel: 07510285458

Fur­ther gath­er­ing details at http://www.veggies.org.uk/event.php?ref=1664

More Bailiff activity at Mainshill

Two Welsh bailiffs were found walk­ing around the site this morn­ing and fol­lowed to one of the bunkers which has been built as a defence.

Two Welsh bailiffs were found walk­ing around the site this morn­ing and fol­lowed to one of the bunkers which has been built as a defence.

The bailiffs then attempt­ed to rip off one of the bunker’s walls but left soon after. Camp res­i­dents are con­cerned that two appear­ances of the Nation­al Evic­tion Team and bailiffs with­in 4 days may mean that they are all in Scot­land wait­ing to evict the camp. Please come to Main­shill if you can and help us defend the site. The Gath­er­ing on Sat­ur­day 28th – Tues­day 1st is going ahead as planned.

http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk

RE-OKUPATION OF THE LAPPERSFORT, CALL OUT FOR SUPPORT

The Lap­pers­fort for­est has been okupied again,
and is now under evic­tion threat.

Come and stay if you like!
Aktion & Evik­tion Prac­tice Week­end 4–6 Decem­ber

Lappersfort December 09 weekend flyerThe Lap­pers­fort for­est has been okupied again,
and is now under evic­tion threat.

Come and stay if you like!
Aktion & Evik­tion Prac­tice Week­end 4–6 Decem­ber

In the dark chilly woods, a new wind is stir­ring; win­ter is mov­ing in, and with the cold nights come a new band of pirates and elves tip­toe­ing their way between the trees.

After 14 months of oku­pa­tion, and a point­less pact with the dev­il signed by 3 pre­vi­ous oku­pants stat­ing that the for­est should be vol­un­tar­i­ly packed up by Novem­ber the 30th, it seemed that the strug­gle to save the Lap­pers­fort was com­ing to an end…

But all ends are new begin­nings in dis­guise, and a new seed of mutiny has been sewn in the fer­tile soil of the forest.As long as it stands threat­ened, the Lap­pers­fort will be okupied by humans to defend it.

Grown over the ruins of an old ammu­ni­tions fac­to­ry, the Lap­pers­fort for­est stands as a sym­bol for the re-growth and re-wild­ing of nature and for the heal­ing of the wounds left by indus­tri­al and sub­ur­ban civil­i­sa­tion.

The action camp is as of now under direct EVICTION THREAT, and we are now busy with bar­rikad­ing, dig­ging in, and get­ting ready every way we can, while still try­ing to reach out for more humans to come and help pro­tect this beau­ti­ful piece of for­est from falling vic­tim to anoth­er point­less project of the kap­i­tal­ist death machine.

For a free­space in the woods and for the woods, for life and wilder­ness every­where, Lap­pers­fort stays until the bit­ter or bet­ter end……

On the week­end of the 4–6th of decem­ber (hop­ing that the camp still exists by then), there will be work­shops on evik­tion and aktion relat­ed stuff, includ­ing climb­ing, tun­nel­ing, lock­ons, freeclimb­ing etc. There will obvi­ous­ly be food and music, and we are still look­ing for indi­vid­u­als or bands to come and play, and oth­er peo­ple with ideas for work­shops are also wished for.

Lap­pers­fort stays!

lappersfort@riseup.net
http://lappersfort.freehostia.com

forest occupation

resis­tance to evic­tion of for­est occu­pa­tion in bel­gium

Dear friends of one of Bel­gium’s last remain­ing forests

The shit is about to hit the fan
the investor’s greedy eyes are cast­ing their long shad­ows over the Lap­pers­fort’s few trees;
their low wages pup­pets are sharp­en­ing their knives and lick­ing their fin­gers

resis­tance to evic­tion of for­est occu­pa­tion in bel­gium

Dear friends of one of Bel­gium’s last remain­ing forests

The shit is about to hit the fan
the investor’s greedy eyes are cast­ing their long shad­ows over the Lap­pers­fort’s few trees;
their low wages pup­pets are sharp­en­ing their knives and lick­ing their fin­gers
We expect the evic­tion of our beloved home with­in the next short month, the 30th/Nov, the 1st and 2nd/Dec so far being the dates of the high­est evic­tion threat
I wished to be able to tell u dif­fer­ent­ly but this place once buzzing with peo­ple is now pret­ty low in num­bers. ‑BUT there are still peo­ple will­ing to fight, so this is a call-out
WE NEED MORE PEOPLE
prefer­ably to stay

what else u can do:
20th/Nov gath­er in the for­est
21st/Nov use medi­a’s cor­rupt­ed minds and play or don’t play along with their stu­pid game once more (details to be explained in case u come)
pass this mes­sage on to any­one u think appro­pri­ate
see u in the trees

http://lappersfort.freehostia.com/en/index/index.html
tele­phone-num­ber: 0032 470 — 96 86 51
lappersfort@gmail.com

Mainshill Eviction Alert: the National Eviction Team show up on Site

20.11.2009
This morn­ing the process to evict Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp began. Mem­bers of the Nation­al Evic­tion Team, along with police climbers, are cur­rent­ly on site, walk­ing around tak­ing pic­tures. At the moment there are about 10 police/eviction team on site, they are attempt­ing to gain access to dwellings and mak­ing threats.

20.11.2009
This morn­ing the process to evict Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp began. Mem­bers of the Nation­al Evic­tion Team, along with police climbers, are cur­rent­ly on site, walk­ing around tak­ing pic­tures. At the moment there are about 10 police/eviction team on site, they are attempt­ing to gain access to dwellings and mak­ing threats.

The Nation­al Evic­tion Team, for those who dont know, are a spe­cial­ist group of sher­iffs offi­cers that evict Activists, Hip­pies, and Squat­ters from tun­nels, tree­hous­es and build­ings.

Res­i­dents of the camp are ask­ing for any­one who is able to go to site as soon as pos­si­ble to boost num­bers and strength­en the camps posi­tion.

More infor­ma­tion as we get it.

Fore direc­tions see here http://coalactionscotland.noflag.org.uk/?page_id=415#How%20to%20Get%20There

Black Cat Occupied Social Centre website now online + events info

*First­ly, we have a shiny new web­site. It is still under­go­ing a bit of work, but has all the impor­tant info you need to know about the place. You can check it out at — http://blackcatcentre.blogspot.com/

Black Cat Centre logo*First­ly, we have a shiny new web­site. It is still under­go­ing a bit of work, but has all the impor­tant info you need to know about the place. You can check it out at — http://blackcatcentre.blogspot.com/

*Just a quick reminder about our ben­e­fit gig this Fri­day (20th) fea­tur­ing Robb John­son & the Irreg­u­lars, Tracey Cur­tis, Cos­mo and a cool, though un-named acoustic ska out­i­fit we found busk­ing in Bath town cen­tre! At only £3/4 sug­gest­ed dona­tion, plus dona­tion din­ner and bar, it looks set to be a wicked night rais­ing funds for decent caus­es (the posties, the black cat and local rad­i­cal rag the Bath Bomb), so drag yer­self over to the West­coun­try for the night. (we have plen­ty of crash space, so why not kip over, then find yer way over to Bris­tol’s Kebele Cen­tre for their birth­day bash on the Sat­ur­day night?)

*From 1pm sat­ur­day, we will be hav­ing an open day, with var­i­ous work­shops (includ­ing bike repair and mak­ing wal­lets from junk, squat­ting Q&A, film show­ings in the evening, lunch and much more). Every­one wel­come!

So, between us and Kebele, we have a cheap and nifty week­end of rad­i­cal relax­ing, cre­at­ing and par­ty­ing going on — there’s nev­er been a bet­ter week­end to spend in the South West!

There is always some­one in at the Black Cat, so if you want to pop over at any time, drop us an email.

Black Cat Col­lec­tive
bathsocialcentre@gmail.com
http://blackcatcentre.blogspot.com/