Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

Homeless campaigners and Social Centre gets eviction notice

Cam­paign group JUSTICE NOT CRISIS who have been cam­paign­ing for more social hous­ing in Birm­ing­ham and help­ing to run a social cen­tre in Birm­ing­ham had been served court papers. Due to the fact that there was no date or time on the papers JNC vis­it­ed the Court to find out when we were to attend court.

Cam­paign group JUSTICE NOT CRISIS who have been cam­paign­ing for more social hous­ing in Birm­ing­ham and help­ing to run a social cen­tre in Birm­ing­ham had been served court papers. Due to the fact that there was no date or time on the papers JNC vis­it­ed the Court to find out when we were to attend court. We were shocked to find that the hear­ing was to be held 45 min­utes lat­er and we did­n’t have time to pre­pare or let oth­er cam­paign­ers know what was hap­pen­ing.

Despite the fact that the papers were not prop­er­ly served the judge con­tin­ued with the hear­ing and award­ed pos­s­e­sion to the own­er with imme­di­ate effect. He also award­ed costs against 3 named peo­ple to the tune of almost £4,000.

JUSTICE NOT CRISIS are prepar­ing an appeal and will update this site as soon as pos­si­ble.

We expect the demo­li­tion com­pa­ny to arrive at 9.00am on Tue­sa­day next week (24th Feb) to start secur­ing the site.

WE MAY NEED HELP IN DEFENDING THIS ACTION. MORE INFO TO FOLLOW.

For more info from our web site please vis­it http://www.justicenotcrisis.wordpress.com

Urgent call for eviction solidarity tomorrow in Bath

New squat in Bath threat­ened with evic­tion tomor­row (Thurs­day 19th) evening by trans­port police

They’re threat­en­ing to evict tomor­row evening — sol­i­dar­i­ty request­ed. Meet at 4.30pm at the entrance to Twer­ton, oppo­site Mac­don­alds near the Low­er Bris­tol Road.

New squat in Bath threat­ened with evic­tion tomor­row (Thurs­day 19th) evening by trans­port police

They’re threat­en­ing to evict tomor­row evening — sol­i­dar­i­ty request­ed. Meet at 4.30pm at the entrance to Twer­ton, oppo­site Mac­don­alds near the Low­er Bris­tol Road.

They don’t have court papers but claim not to need to as they say it’s part of the rail­way. Net­work Rail claim to own the build­ing despite it not hav­ing been used as a rail­way build­ing since before 1920. The pre­vi­ous (legal) occu­pant is believed to have gone on the run for drug offences — the build­ing’s been aban­doned for years.

spike social centre eviction in progress — London

12.2.2009 9am
the spike sur­plus scheme of 39b con­sort road, peck­ham, Lon­don is being eve­ict­ed as we speak. bailiffs, cops, pcsos and “com­mu­ni­ty war­dens” are on site.

12.2.2009 9am
the spike sur­plus scheme of 39b con­sort road, peck­ham, Lon­don is being eve­ict­ed as we speak. bailiffs, cops, pcsos and “com­mu­ni­ty war­dens” are on site.

after a ten year project in the build­ing which has been in com­mu­ni­ty use for 150 years, the prop­er­ty divi­sion of sout­wark coun­cil have decid­ed to end the project. though they promised to give notice to clear the projects equip­ment before evic­tion, south­wark coun­cil gave instruc­tions to get a spe­cial court order so as not to give any notice at all.

Jere­my pil­grim of the south­wark coun­cil lead the police oper­a­tion, vis­it­ing the project for the first time this morn­ing after many pre­vi­ous invites to vis­it the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre.

peo­ple have been told to liase with bailiffs in order to col­lect the thou­sands of pounds worth of equip­ment still there.

www.spikesurplus.org

www.myspace.com/spikesurplus

squat eviction & resistance in the South West

ille­gal evic­tion of squat in Bath
On Mon­day the 9th Feb­ru­ary, at 2.15pm, British Trans­port Police & Bath con­stab­u­lary con­spired to com­mit an ille­gal evic­tion of a new short-lived squat on the edge of Twer­ton, in Bath.

squat logo 13ille­gal evic­tion of squat in Bath
On Mon­day the 9th Feb­ru­ary, at 2.15pm, British Trans­port Police & Bath con­stab­u­lary con­spired to com­mit an ille­gal evic­tion of a new short-lived squat on the edge of Twer­ton, in Bath.

The for­mer Twer­ton-on-Avon rail­way sta­tion fell out of use in 1917, and was briefly the site of Androm­e­da Gar­den­ing Ser­vices owned by R. Pot­ter. R. Pot­ter was arrest­ed and found guilty of a huge can­nibis grow­ing oper­a­tion in the loft of the build­ing in 2003, and was believed to have been forced to sell the prop­er­ty to pay off the fine. The build­ing was lat­er occu­pied by Euro­pean squat­ters in 2006 & 2007, whom the local res­i­dents mis­tak­en­ly assumed were the can­nibis deal­ers. Con­tend­ing with that and con­fus­ing the issue, Net­work Rail also claimed squat­ters’ rights to the build­ing, and their twelve years’ were due to be up in August 2008, except for the inter­ven­tion of our Euro­pean friends.

A sec­ond gen­er­a­tion of squat­ters moved in on Fri­day the 6th of Feb­ru­ary, last week, through a dam­aged door­way and prompt­ly went about doing up their love­ly new 4‑storey home, con­tent in the knowl­edge that they were the new tem­po­rary own­ers.

The author­i­ties had oth­er ideas though, with BTP com­mit­ting crim­i­nal dam­age destroy­ing one of the pad­locks, crim­i­nal­ly break­ing and enter­ing as they boot­ed their way through the door, and then tres­pass­ing as they spread through the build­ing, ignor­ing the Sec­tion 6 notice that the occu­pi­er read out to them as they car­ried on their crime wave. Offi­cer 1306 par­tic­u­lar­ly of British Trans­port Police take note. They were alleged­ly act­ing off knowl­edge from a near­by prop­er­ty also rent­ing from Net­work Rail (were they fraud­u­lent­ly pre­tend­ing to be the own­er of that prop­er­ty, too, one won­ders?) who report­ed sus­pi­cious squat­ter-types enter­ing and leav­ing the build­ing — so police also broke their own rules on reveal­ing wit­ness­es. They then hand­ed over the occu­pi­er to Bath Con­stab­u­lary, who held him for a fur­ther 8 hours.

Bath Police did­n’t care about the fact that Net­work Rail aren’t the legal own­ers of the con­test­ed build­ing, and nei­ther did they care about the gui­dle­lines set down in PACE where they are oblig­ed to sup­ply inmates with writ­ing mate­ri­als, or food in sealed pack­ag­ing, or indeed respond to the sus­pec­t’s cries when hav­ing a claus­tro­pho­bia attack, or indeed offer him access to a solic­i­tor of his choice and repeat­ed­ly refus­ing him access to hsi phone call — though, they even­tu­al­ly caved on that.

It also appears that the police flunked their law exam: they were due to release the per­son with a cau­tion for tres­pass at 21.30 that night, until one of the embar­rassed CPS took their win­dow-lick­ing col­league aside and advised that it’s prob­a­bly best to do some­one for a crime, rather than a civ­il offense. So, cau­tuoned for elec­tric­i­ty extyrac­tion it was.

Also of note is that at no point was a legal warn­ing giv­en, nor a war­rant pro­duced. The offend­ing bad cop screwed up the Sec­tion 6 and shoved it in his pock­et with a scowl.

Good old Bath police.

But for read­ers out there, the prop­er­ty is still own­er­less and ripe for the tak­ing. And remem­ber: an attack one is an attack on all.

Don’t let ’em rot…

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ille­gal evic­tion avert­ed in Bris­tol

Feb­ru­ary 3, 2009
police soon change their tune…

About 1.30pm this after­noon a squat in eas­t­on was a tar­get of ille­gal evic­tion attempt.

Police, accom­pa­ny­ing the own­ers threat­ened to “kick the door down in half an hour” if the occu­pants did­n’t leave. In about 20 min­utes, around 20 local res­i­dents turned to show their con­cern to what was going on. The Police soon changed their tune, and before you knew it they had spo­ken to the own­ers and things would now pro­ceed through court.

National Squat Meetup. 14/15 March. Bristol Area

NOW IS A PERFECT TIME TO SQUAT
Now is a per­fect time to come togeth­er to share our col­lec­tive cre­ativ­i­ty, rage, and pride in our cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty; to come togeth­er for our­selves and look to our future with sol­i­dar­i­ty and pas­sion. Let’s meet and empow­er our­selves in our com­mon strug­gle!

CRACKS ARE APPEARING…

NOW IS A PERFECT TIME TO SQUAT
Now is a per­fect time to come togeth­er to share our col­lec­tive cre­ativ­i­ty, rage, and pride in our cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty; to come togeth­er for our­selves and look to our future with sol­i­dar­i­ty and pas­sion. Let’s meet and empow­er our­selves in our com­mon strug­gle!

CRACKS ARE APPEARING…
We feel it nec­es­sary to meet at a time when those at the top are los­ing their grip to dis­cuss ways we can work togeth­er to change our world from the bot­tom up. New spaces and oppor­tu­ni­ties are open­ing all around us and there is a grow­ing poten­tial for more wide­spread recog­ni­tion of the need for autonomous hous­ing action. The threat of evic­tion and home­less­ness hangs over more peo­ple every day. There are over a bil­lion squat­ters in the world. Now is the time to build a stronger net­work of resis­tance.

THIS IS A CALLOUT
This is a call­out for all those involved in secur­ing and main­tain­ing squats and autonomous spaces across the UK, and beyond, to meet and dis­cuss issues that affect us all as a com­mu­ni­ty. Fol­low­ing on from the huge­ly suc­cess­ful nation­al meet­ing in Leeds last year, and many small­er local gath­er­ings, that have hap­pened through­out the year, this year’s meet up will be in the Bris­tol area. Please bring your pos­i­tive ener­gy, enthu­si­asm and thoughts to share skills and engage in open dia­logue.

WE CAN CONSTRUCT A POSITIVE VISION OF THE WORLD
We hope to dis­cuss ways of strength­en­ing our net­work in defence of autonomous spaces, share suc­cess sto­ries from last year’s day of action and for­mu­late future plans and schemes for cre­ative chaos! The agen­da will be decid­ed between us all on Fri­day evening. Please arrive ear­ly if pos­si­ble to help us cre­ate the space. Any comments/ suggestions/ mad ideas please con­tact squatmeetup@googlemail.com

Relat­ed Link: http://squatmeet09.wordpress.com/

15 years on — Solsbury Hill anti-road resistance photo exhibition, book launch and on-line archive

Sols­bury Hill near Bath was the set­ting for an ear­ly ’90s bat­tle against road build­ing (and by exten­sion depend­ing who you talked to from the cam­paign — unsus­tain­able development/romans/global warming/industrial infra­struc­tur­al growth/spectacular society/babylon/illogical trans­port policy/the tories/civilisation.)

Sols­bury Hill near Bath was the set­ting for an ear­ly ’90s bat­tle against road build­ing (and by exten­sion depend­ing who you talked to from the cam­paign — unsus­tain­able development/romans/global warming/industrial infra­struc­tur­al growth/spectacular society/babylon/illogical trans­port policy/the tories/civilisation.)

Adri­an Arbib a pho­tog­ra­ph­er who was also active in the cam­paign (and who has worked with indige­nous groups world­wide) is pub­lish­ing a book of his pho­tos from the cam­paign and has set up a linked on-line video/document archive.

The book is being launched at a view­ing and par­ty of the Sols­bury Hill Pho­to exhib­it on Fri­day 20th Feb­ru­ary 6 — 8:30pm In the Wal­cot Chapel Gallery, Bath and over the road after to the Bell Pub.

The Exhi­bi­tion is run­ning until March 8th and the book of pho­to’s is com­ing out to coin­cide with the open­ing.
(Bring old photo’s/ news paper cuttings/ posters etc to up-load on the web page to make a big­ger archive.)

For more details and to check out the archive see: www.solsburyhill.org.uk

ps please for­ward to any con­tacts from the hill.

2008 round-up — fighting development on disputed lands: Mohawk blockades & site invasions in the Six Nations

Mohawk pro­test­er Brant gets light penal­ty for block­ades
Sep­tem­ber 29, 2008

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Tyendinaga mohawk flag & blockade

Mohawk pro­test­er Brant gets light penal­ty for block­ades
Sep­tem­ber 29, 2008

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Mohawks stop instal­la­tion of police facil­i­ty, Sep­tem­ber 24, 2008

…a group of about 50 peo­ple were at the site Tues­day after­noon, vow­ing to block offi­cials from plac­ing a pre­fab build­ing they feel the com­mu­ni­ty was not con­sult­ed about.

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Six Nations group stops work at Eagle Place hous­ing site in Brant­ford, Sep­tem­ber 16, 2008

A Six Nations group blocked an attempt to begin work Mon­day on the site of a new hous­ing devel­op­ment at Erie Avenue and Bir­kett Lane.

Up to 30 mem­bers of the Hau­denosaunee Men’s Fire gath­ered at the site of a 99-home sub­di­vi­sion at about 6 a. m. and didn’t leave until ear­ly after­noon.

Their efforts pre­vent­ed city work crews from begin­ning work to pro­vide ser­vic­ing to the site, which is one of five des­ig­nat­ed no-go zones in bylaws passed by the city and an injunc­tion obtained in Ontario Supe­ri­or Court pro­hibit­ing activ­i­ties that stop con­struc­tion work.

“We’re required to be here. It’s our duty to be here, ” said native spokesman Dahwehido:geh, also known as Phillip W. Skye.

“This land is part of the Eagle’s Nest Tract. It has nev­er been sur­ren­dered, ced­ed or giv­en up and it’s our duty to pro­tect it.

“We’re here to make sure that no shov­el is put into the ground.”

As he spoke, Skye had a repli­ca of the Two Row Wampum draped over his arm.

He said devel­op­ment of the site would dam­age the area’s eco-sys­tem and he encour­aged city offi­cials to move away from devel­op­ing vacant land.

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Arrests spark Six Nations block­ade in Cale­do­nia, Sep­tem­ber 02, 2008

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, Stephen Pow­less, 43, and two teens were arrest­ed in Brant­ford for alleged­ly being on the con­struc­tion site at the Hamp­ton Inn on Fen Ridge Court, next to the Kingspan Insu­lat­ed Pan­els devel­op­ment site from which they are barred.

Police said the trio are under a court order to stay away from the land and were all charged with breach of a court order and mis­chief.

Clyde Pow­less, a spokesper­son for Six Nations, said the arrests were a “cat­a­lyst” for the block­ades, but that the com­mu­ni­ty is also frus­trat­ed by the slow pace of land claim nega­tions with the provin­cial and fed­er­al gov­ern­ments.

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Six Nations peo­ple shut down anoth­er Brant­ford devel­op­ment, August 6, 2008

More than 30 Six Nations pro­test­ers shut down work on a $500-mil­lion indus­tri­al and com­mer­cial devel­op­ment on Oak Park Road Tues­day morn­ing, say­ing envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns must be addressed.

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Six Nations peo­ple take aim at hotel project, July 19, 2008

They set up a large teepee at the edge of the Hamp­ton Inn hotel site on Fen Ridge Court after suc­cess­ful­ly halt­ing con­struc­tion of the near­by Kingspan Insu­la­tion ware­house and head­quar­ters.

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Six Nations peo­ple block job site over land dis­pute, July 14, 2008

BRANTFORD, Ont. — Ten­sions over native land claims in South­ern Ontario flared again Mon­day morn­ing as a pro­test­er blocked a cement truck’s access to a build­ing site and then alleged­ly assault­ed a police offi­cer.
…
The dis­agree­ment in Brant­ford stems from plans to build an insu­la­tion fac­to­ry and head­quar­ters on land that is sub­ject to a long-out­stand­ing native land claim.
…
“We’re con­tin­u­ing to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion. The under­ly­ing issue here is a 200-year-old land claim against the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, so the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment needs to accel­er­ate the nego­ti­a­tions lead­ing to a res­o­lu­tion of this issue,” said Greg Crone, Mr. Bryant’s press sec­re­tary.

The Six Nations claim own­er­ship of the area as part of a his­tor­i­cal treaty that they allege was not prop­er­ly hon­oured. The local gov­ern­ment received a tem­po­rary injunc­tion in May that pro­hibits inter­fer­ence with devel­op­ment on the site — owned by Ire­land-based Kingspan — and sev­er­al oth­er near­by prop­er­ties.

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Mohawks pulling down fence
Ignor­ing injunc­tion, Six Nations peo­ple stop work at devel­op­ment sites, July 8, 2008

‘Today is the first day of tak­ing back our ter­ri­to­ry’
Ignor­ing injunc­tion, native pro­test­ers stop work at devel­op­ment sites

Natives ignored a court injunc­tion Mon­day by march­ing onto devel­op­ment sites across the city.

Con­struc­tion was halt­ed at five projects as about 150 native pro­test­ers burst onto dusty work sites and ordered employ­ees to shut down equip­ment.
…
When the pro­test­ers moved along Fen Ridge Court to the con­struc­tion site for Kingspan Insulation’s new head­quar­ters and indus­tri­al plant, they found all the work­ers, their cars and equip­ment were behind a locked eight-foot met­al fence.
…
When the work­er refused, say­ing the land belonged to the devel­op­ers, sev­er­al natives sim­ply lift­ed a por­tion of the met­al fence out of its moor­ings and swung it out like a gar­den gate. When it top­pled, the natives walked over it and swarmed over the enor­mous prop­er­ty, rang­ing out to where huge earth-movers were oper­at­ing and insist­ing the work stop.

At each site, the pro­test­ers wait­ed patient­ly for the work­ers to shut down equip­ment, pack up their tools and move out of the area, often wav­ing good­bye.

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Tyendinaga flags & camp
Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Tyen­d­i­na­ga and Six Nations, May 1, 2008

Ontario Provin­cial Police (OPP) attacked the Mohawk peo­ple at the Tyendinaga/Deseronto reclaimed quar­ry on Fri­day, April 25, 2008, arrest­ing as many as 10 peo­ple and point­ing guns. Sol­i­dar­i­ty block­ades, actions and demon­stra­tions took place in Six Nations/Caledonia, Akwe­sasne, Kah­nawake, Guelph, Ottawa, Toron­to and Van­cou­ver over the fol­low­ing four days. On April 26, the OPP threat­ened to remove by force the block­ade of the High­way 6 bypass at Six Nations/Caledonia, but rein­force­ments that arrived from the reserve con­vinced the cops oth­er­wise. The OPP backed-off from the Tyendinaga/Deseronto quar­ry on April 29 and the block­ade of the High­way 6 bypass at Six Nations/Caledonia was brought down.
Mohawk flag in road blockade
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Show of OPP force ends native block­ade, April 23, 2008

Native pro­test­ers who orches­trat­ed a block­ade of a major por­tion of this town ear­li­er this week dis­persed Tues­day morn­ing when con­front­ed by a pha­lanx of OPP offi­cers.

As well, the devel­op­er who sparked the inci­dent pledged Tues­day to stay away from devel­op­ing any por­tion of lands involved in the native claim known as the Cul­bert­son Tract.
…
Pro­test­ers are still occu­py­ing por­tions of the dis­put­ed land devel­op­ment, most notably at the near­by Thur­low Aggre­gates quar­ry along Deseron­to Road, which they have occu­pied since last March.

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Devel­op­ment must stop on our land, Octo­ber 20, 2007

Mem­bers of Six Nations staged a 12-hour protest Fri­day at Hen­ry Street and Wayne Gret­zky Park­way, halt­ing con­struc­tion of a $40-mil­lion com­mer­cial devel­op­ment.

About a dozen natives arrived at 6:30 a.m., block­ing the site entrance to stop work­ers from dri­ving in. They erect­ed Six Nations flags and signs that read “Six Nations Land” and “Your Lease is Up.” City police mon­i­tored the site dur­ing the protest, which end­ed at about 6 p.m.

The First Gulf devel­op­ment was also the site of a Six Nations protest in March, when natives asked for a delay in work until the com­pa­ny met with the Six Nations Con­fed­er­a­cy.

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OPP arrest nine at Cale­do­nia re-occu­pa­tion, Sep­tem­ber 20, 2007

The last pock­et of native pro­test­ers was cleared yes­ter­day from a res­i­den­tial con­struc­tion site where a house builder was severe­ly beat­en last week.

With neigh­bours watch­ing and cheer­ing from their back yards, about 50 OPP offi­cers in riot gear marched in and arrest­ed nine men and women who had defied their native elders by refus­ing to leave the Stir­ling Street devel­op­ment.

The oper­a­tion went off with­out any major hitch­es and natives watch­ing from the side­lines made no attempt to assist the pro­test­ers. It was in marked con­trast to the abortive OPP raid at Dou­glas Creek Estates on April 20, 2006, when pro­test­ers with clubs and crude weapons chased off a heav­i­ly- armed police tac­ti­cal team, injur­ing sev­er­al offi­cers.
…
For the first time since last Thurs­day, when all con­struc­tion had stopped, oth­er trades­peo­ple had start­ed trick­ling back in as well.

Even with the large police pres­ence, Gualtieri said his brick­lay­ers were appre­hen­sive and were work­ing much faster than usu­al.

They had noticed a hand­ful of native pro­test­ers pok­ing around a large mound of dirt on the east side of the devel­op­ment where there was a large ban­ner accus­ing Cana­da of geno­cide against abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple.

In the ear­ly after­noon, police start­ed set­ting up check­points and road­blocks around the sub­di­vi­sion and told work­ers to leave for their own safe­ty.

By about 2 p.m., a large num­ber of vans and oth­er spe­cial­ized police vehi­cles, plus two canine units, rolled onto the site.

By about 2:30 p.m., there were about 100 offi­cers on the site, includ­ing mem­bers of Hamil­ton police, and a large con­tin­gent of tac­ti­cal offi­cers in riot gear.

Gualtieri said he was impressed by the mil­i­tary pre­ci­sion of the oper­a­tion as he watched the tac­ti­cal offi­cers suit­ing up and prepar­ing to con­front the pro­test­ers.

He added it was empow­er­ing to watch the baton-wield­ing offi­cers tap­ping their shields in uni­son as they closed in on the pro­test­ers, who had refused to budge when a uni­formed offi­cer had asked them to leave a few min­utes ear­li­er.

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Native protest stalls Brant­ford project, Sep 5, 2007

A small city devel­op­er fears he has lost his financ­ing, trades­peo­ple and sup­pli­ers for a $1.2‑million, four-duplex devel­op­ment native pro­test­ers shut down yes­ter­day.

May­ber­ry Homes own­er Mike Quat­tro­cioc­chi, a for­mer Brant­ford city coun­cil­lor, said sev­er­al pro­test­ers climbed into a foun­da­tion hole being dug and sat down in front of a back­hoe, effec­tive­ly stop­ping work at 11 a.m.

They argued the land is the sub­ject of a land claim.

====
Tyendinaga rail blockade
Fol­low the links above for more info on each protest, and more.

For oth­er indige­nous resis­tance in Cana­da dur­ing 2007, see http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22099

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Back­ground 2005 arti­cle on indige­nous resis­tance: Min­ing: Steal­ing the Land from Under Us

Back­ground -
In 1995, Tyen­d­i­na­ga filed a spe­cif­ic claim for the Cul­ber­ston Tract, a 923-acre par­cel near their ter­ri­to­ry. In 2003, as part of the land claims nego­ti­a­tions, the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment acknowl­edged that the Cul­bert­son Tract had nev­er been sur­ren­dered, but rather than return the land, want­ed Tyen­d­i­na­ga to take a cash buy-out.

Firebird Social Centre eviction bid fails at first hurdle

Jus­tice not Cri­sis were tak­en to court today by the own­er of the Fire­bird who was attempt­ing to seek an imme­di­ate evic­tion.

Jus­tice not Cri­sis were tak­en to court today by the own­er of the Fire­bird who was attempt­ing to seek an imme­di­ate evic­tion.

JNC’S legal team pre­pared a defence oppos­ing the evic­tion on many grounds includ­ing incor­rect ser­vice of papers and hard­ship. Fol­low­ing a 30 min hear­ing the Judge agreed that the own­er had failed to cor­rect­ly serve the legal papers and the case was adjourned for 3 weeks for a fur­ther direc­tions hear­ing.

JNC’ intend to vig­or­ous­ly oppose an imme­di­ate evic­tion and offered the own­er a Order by con­sent deal which seems like­ly to be accept­ed. If accept­ed JNC agree to vacate the premis­es when the the site is sold for Social­ly rent­ed homes, amongst oth­er things and the own­er would agree to allow us to remain.

This is a sub­stan­cial vic­to­ry for our cam­paign and should see 30 new homes for rent built on the site. This is only a start in reduc­ing the 30,000 wait­ing list and our cam­paign will con­tin­ue. We are cur­rent­ly con­sid­er­ing our options when this bat­tle is won and will report details of our next squat when it is iden­ti­fied.

We would like to thank the Squat­ters Advi­so­ry Ser­vice for their help in the prepa­ra­tion of our defence.

More info or for the Loca­tion of The Fire­bird Social Jus­tice Cen­tre justicenotcrisis.wordpress.com

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 85, December/January 2008/2009

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UPCOMING/ONGOING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
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1. Camp for Cli­mate Action Gath­er­ing, 31.01.09–01.02.09
2. Earth First! Win­ter Moot, 6–8.02.09
3. Mobil­is­ing for the COP, 13–15.03.09
4. Do It Your­self! Course, 22–27.03.09
5. Fos­sil Fools Day 2009, 01.04.09
6. Coal Car­a­van, April 2009

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UPCOMING/ONGOING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
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1. Camp for Cli­mate Action Gath­er­ing, 31.01.09–01.02.09
2. Earth First! Win­ter Moot, 6–8.02.09
3. Mobil­is­ing for the COP, 13–15.03.09
4. Do It Your­self! Course, 22–27.03.09
5. Fos­sil Fools Day 2009, 01.04.09
6. Coal Car­a­van, April 2009
7. Earth Activist Train­ing, 11–26.07.09
8. Non­vi­o­lence for a Change Train­ing, Jan-Dec 2009

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RECENT HAPPENINGS:
—————-
1. Case col­laps­es against E.On block­aders, 14.01.09
2. Heathrow’s third run­way gets the go-ahead and activists respond, Jan­u­ary 2009
3. Plane Stu­pid shut down Stanst­ed Air­port, 08–12.08
4. 48 hours of action against E.on and new coal, 28–29.11.08
5. Scot­tish coal rail ter­mi­nal shut down, 15.12.08
6. E.ON forced to aban­don recruit­ment tour, Novem­ber 2008
7. Kel­ster­back For­est Occu­pa­tion (Frank­furt Air­port), ongo­ing

————————-
UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-

1) Camp for Cli­mate Action New Year Gath­er­ing, 31.01.09 – 01.02.09
2008 saw the biggest Cli­mate Camp to date and the most incred­i­ble array of direct action against cli­mate change on record. But what does 2009 hold in store? Regard­less of whether you’ve been to a cli­mate camp, all are wel­come to come along to this excit­ing week­end gath­er­ing. We will be ask­ing our­selves whether there should be anoth­er big sum­mer event and, if so, what it should be. Already there have been many pos­si­bil­i­ties raised, rang­ing from anoth­er rur­al camp to a sin­gu­lar day of action. Oth­er ideas include an urban con­ver­gence or a cli­mate car­a­van. The gath­er­ing will also pro­vide a forum to talk http://climatecamp.org.uk/?q=node/468

2) Earth First! Win­ter Moot, 6–8.02.09
The Earth First! Win­ter Moot is a week­end to reflect on where we are as a rad­i­cal ecol­o­gist move­ment and on where we are going. The moot will be about dis­cussing strat­e­gy, strength­en­ing the EF! net­work, secu­ri­ty and com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and action plan­ning. A ses­sion is also reserved for dis­cussing a UK mobil­i­sa­tion for the UN cli­mate con­fer­ence in Copen­hagen late 2009. The moot will be held in Brighton (t.b.c.). Please check the web­site near­er to the time for fur­ther details and email any items you would like to add an item to the agen­da to moot2009 at earthfirst.org.uk.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21557

3) Mobil­is­ing for the COP, 13–15.03.09
The UN Cli­mate Con­fer­ence of Par­ties num­ber 15 is set to take place in Copen­hagen on the 30th of Novem­ber 2009, and it will be the biggest cli­mate sum­mit ever to have tak­en place. More than 12,000 del­e­gates — busi­ness lead­ers, politi­cians, diplo­mats and lob­by­ists — are going to be dis­cussing an inter­na­tion­al treaty to replace the failed Kyoto Pro­to­col.

Tens of thou­sands of activists and pro­test­ers will be mak­ing their way to Copen­hagen for this major event. In Sep­tem­ber 2008 peo­ple from more than 23 coun­tries met in Copen­hagen and agreed on a Call to Action, call­ing for peo­ple to start mobi­liz­ing and to car­ry out actions local­ly as well as com­ing to Copen­hagen for mass actions.
Anoth­er inter­na­tion­al plan­ning meet­ing will take place in March (13th-15th) 2009 where the con­cepts and strat­e­gy for action will be dis­cussed. http://climateaction09.org/

4) Do It Your­self! 22–27.03.09
A course explor­ing tools for empow­er­ment and grass­roots social change, at the Find­horn Foun­da­tion

Can we man­age our own lives and com­mu­ni­ties at the grass­roots rather than retreat­ing into fear, blame and stereo­types or look­ing to oth­ers to solve the prob­lems? Many peo­ple believe that the answers to the big ques­tions lie in com­mu­ni­ty empow­er­ment, bot­tom up organ­is­ing. This course pro­vides a chance to become con­fi­dent using a range of tech­niques designed to this end and to clar­i­fy our visions for the poten­tial of these approach­es. We will also put aside time to deal with the emo­tions and doubts raised and include a range of short films and con­tem­po­rary case stud­ies.

The main aims of the course are to share with par­tic­i­pants tools, knowl­edges, and ini­tia­tives which can be used to empow­er them­selves and their com­mu­ni­ties, and inspire pos­i­tive social change, based on co-oper­a­tion and sol­i­dar­i­ty. The course will draw on the book DO IT YOUSELF – A Hand­book for Chang­ing Our World edit­ed by TRAPESE (see handbookforchange.org) Email for more info: trapese@riseup.net

5) Fos­sil Fools Day 2009, 01.04.09
Just in case you missed the news – Fos­sil Fools Day is back! On April 1st, join the glob­al day of resis­tance and pull a prank that packs a punch. Call-out now avail­able on the web­site, so help spread the word. If you would like leaflets and/or posters send us an email and we’ll post you some – info@risingtide.org.uk
www.risingtide.org.uk/fossilfoolsday2009

6) Coal Car­a­van, 17.04.09 – 04.05.09
The fab­u­lous cli­mate car­a­van lives on. This time we will be the COAL CARAVAN, walk­ing and cycling between the sites for pro­posed open cast mines and new pow­er sta­tions in the Mid­lands, York­shire and North East. On our route we’ll be talk­ing to local peo­ple, organ­is­ing bicy­cled pow­er films and events, hold­ing pub­lic dis­cus­sions and dis­plays, and link­ing groups from dif­fer­ent areas to help strength­en iso­lat­ed cam­paigns.

Pre­cise details of the route are to be con­firmed, but put the dates in your diary now! Meet up Fri­day 17th April (W. Mid­lands), to start our jour­ney on Sat­ur­day 18th. The Car­a­van will end two and a half weeks lat­er with a grand finale on Bank Hol­i­day Mon­day (4th May).
The car­a­van itself will not involve direct action (although we may offer train­ing, if local groups so request).
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21915
/caravan@climatecamp.org.uk.

7) Earth Activist Train­ing, 11–26.07.09
Learn the skills to trans­form a piece of land, a com­mu­ni­ty, and our polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic sys­tems. Spend two weeks in rur­al Devon learn­ing: Nature and wilder­ness aware­ness, Diver­si­ty in ecosys­tems and social move­ments, Solu­tions that exist: alter­na­tive ener­gy; organ­ic farm­ing; nat­ur­al build­ing; biore­me­di­a­tion & restora­tion, Soil and wood­land ecol­o­gy and much, much more …

On com­ple­tion par­tic­i­pants will receive a per­ma­cul­ture design cer­tifi­cate. The course will be held at Land­mat­ters Per­ma­cul­ture Coop­er­a­tive in Devon. Costs: £200 — £650 slid­ing scale accord­ing to income. http://www.landmatters.org.uk / earthactivisttraining@riseup.net

8) Non­vi­o­lence for a Change Train­ing, 2009
Turn­ing the Tide will offer month­ly work­shops in non­vi­o­lent meth­ods and strate­gies for social change. You can par­tic­i­pate as a mem­ber of the year-group (com­mit­ting to all eleven ses­sions) or only come to those work­shops which inter­est you.
http://www.turning-the-tide.org

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RECENT HAPPENINGS:
—————-

1) Case col­laps­es against E.On block­aders, 14.01.09
Two envi­ron­men­tal­ists, arrest­ed fol­low­ing a block­ade of E.On’s Not­ting­ham offices on Fos­sil Fools Day 2008, had the case against them dis­missed on Wednes­day 14th Jan­u­ary. The case col­lapsed after it emerged that the pros­e­cu­tion had offered no evi­dence to sup­port the charge of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass. The Crown Pros­e­cu­tion Ser­vice (CPS) were found to have been neg­li­gent in their admin­is­tra­tion of the case and were ordered to pay the defence’s costs.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/01/419126.html

2) Heathrow’s third run­way gets the go-ahead and activists respond,
Jan­u­ary 2009
Both Heathrow and Man­ches­ter air­ports were tar­get­ed Mon­day 12th Jan­u­ary with the domes­tic depar­ture lounges of both air­ports simul­ta­ne­ous­ly occu­pied by pro­test­ers. In Lon­don over 500 peo­ple defied air­port bylaws by stag­ing a sit-down din­ner, forc­ing air­port oper­a­tor BAA to close 18 check-in desks. In Man­ches­ter police used pow­ers under Sec­tion 14 of the Pub­lic Order Act to con­tain up to 100 pro­test­ers on the ground floor of Ter­mi­nal 3, with one arrest.

Mean­while, Green­peace revealed that a plot of land with­in the pro­posed expan­sion site had been pur­chased in an attempt to delay the con­struc­tion.

When the announce­ment came on Thurs­day 15th, ‘cli­mate suf­fragettes’ smashed the win­dows of the Depart­ment of Trans­port (http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/01/418697.html) and on Sat­ur­day 17th Jan, 500 flash mobbed at Heathrows ter­mi­nal 5.

For all the details, pic­tures, videos and more vis­it -
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/01/418105.html

3) Plane Stu­pid shut down Stanst­ed Air­port, 08–12.08
50 activists from Plane Stu­pid shut down Stanst­ed Air­port by camp­ing on the run­way and sur­round­ing them­selves with for­ti­fied secu­ri­ty fenc­ing. Plane Stu­pid announced ‘We are gen­uine­ly grate­ful for the lev­el of sup­port from peo­ple who have agreed with us that des­per­ate times call for des­per­ate mea­sures. We have used this action to ask for every­one to ‘please, do some­thing’. We hope that all those that have expressed sup­port for today’s action will now think about what they are going to do to ensure the sur­vival of our plan­et and peo­ple on it’.
http://www.planestupid.com/?q=content/plane-stupid-shuts-stansted-airport

4) 48 hours of action against E.on and new coal, 28–29.11.08
The 48 hours of action was a great first shot across the bows. E.On were rat­tled, local and nation­al media took an inter­est, resources were gath­ered and are now ready to go, a new web­site is now up and run­ning (http://www.e‑onf-off.org.uk/), a list of tar­gets has been com­piled and E.on know that if they try to build a new coal fired pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth then they will face a bar­rage of direct action — both towards their dai­ly oper­a­tions and their sup­ply chain. E.on be warned. Actions took place in: Lon­don, Brighton, Bris­tol, Nor­wich, Coven­try, Not­ting­ham & Coven­try and at Kingsnorth itself. http://risingtide.org.uk/node/309

Plus, ‘Green Banksy’ invades Kingsnorth dur­ing the 48 hours: An
uniden­ti­fied group alleged­ly pen­e­trat­ed Kingsnorth secu­ri­ty and switched off almost 500 megawatts of gen­er­at­ing capac­i­ty, cut­ting almost 2% off the nation’s pow­er sup­ply for about four hours.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/12/414463.html

5) Scot­tish coal rail ter­mi­nal shut down, 15.12.08
30 cam­paign­ers from Coal Action Scot­land togeth­er with local res­i­dents peace­ful­ly block­ad­ed the entrance to the Scot­tish Coal-oper­at­ed Raven­struther coal rail ter­mi­nal in South Lanark­shire for 8 hours. The pro­tes­tors were act­ing to oppose the five open cast coal mines that deliv­er coal to the rail ter­mi­nal and in resis­tance to the thir­teen new open cast coal mines due to open in Scot­land. Pro­tes­tors erect­ed and scaled a 15ft scaf­fold­ing tri­pod, block­ing trucks from enter­ing the ter­mi­nal. Oth­ers locked them­selves by their necks to a con­vey­or belt and a bull­doz­er, pre­vent­ing coal stock­piles from being loaded onto trains. An
esti­mat­ed 6,380 tonnes of coal were stopped from being trans­port­ed from the coal mines to pow­er sta­tions, pre­vent­ing the equiv­a­lent to 11,675.4 tonnes of CO2 from being released into the atmos­phere.
http://coalactionedinburgh.wordpress.com/

6) E.ON forced to aban­don recruit­ment tour, Novem­ber 2008
Anti-coal protests at grad­u­ate careers fairs around the UK forced E.ON to can­cel its recruit­ment tour. The ener­gy com­pa­ny, which is plan­ning to build a new coal pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth, Kent, saw sev­en­teen of its careers events dis­rupt­ed. This was a co-ordi­nat­ed nation­al effort from stu­dents involved in Peo­ple & Plan­et, the Coal Action Net­work, and the Camp for Cli­mate Action. Leaflets, ban­ners, fan­cy dress, con­ver­sa­tions with atten­dees and eye-catch­ing stunts were used to embar­rass E.ON and dis­suade grad­u­ates from join­ing the com­pa­ny. The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, one of E.ON’s main finan­cial back­ers, were also tar­get­ed at the fairs over their role in pro­vid­ing loans to build the pro­posed new pow­er sta­tion.
http://leaveitintheground.org.uk/?p=185

7) Kel­ster­back For­est Occu­pa­tion (Frank­furt Air­port), ongo­ing Resist Frank­furt Air­port Expan­sion — defend the for­est camp. After Heathrow, Frank­furt is the largest air­port in Europe. Fra­port (the com­pa­ny run­ning the air­port) and the Ger­man gov­ern­ment are try­ing to build a new run­way, to mas­sive­ly increase flights. To build the new run­way, Fra­port need to clear 250,000 m² of pro­tect­ed for­est. For sev­en months, activists have been squat­ting the for­est, build­ing tree plat­forms and float­ing rafts to resist attempts to chop down the for­est. Jan­u­ary 2009 is bring­ing threat of evic­tion — and they need all the help they can get.
http://waldbesetzung.blogsport.de/english-information/ or
http://waldbesetzung.blogsport.de/photos/

—————–
Ris­ing Tide UK,
c/o 62 Fieldgate Street,
Lon­don E1 1ES
www.risingtide.org.uk
www.artnotoil.org.uk
www.fossilfoolsday.org
Tel: 07708 794665

See also the Camp for Cli­mate Action (www.climatecamp.org.uk), Net­work for
Cli­mate Action (www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk) and Cli­mate Indy­media
(www.climateimc.org)

———-

Please send any­thing you’d like includ­ed in this news sheet to:
newssheet@risingtide.org.uk

To view pre­vi­ous edi­tions of the Ris­ing Tide News Sheet, vis­it the News
Sheet Archive at http://risingtide.org.uk/newssheet

This News Sheet was brought to you by Ris­ing Tide, a grass­roots net­work
of groups and indi­vid­u­als com­mit­ted to tak­ing action and build­ing a
move­ment against cli­mate change.

For more infor­ma­tion…
email: info@risingtide.org.uk
Phone: +44 (0)845 458 8923 / +44 (0)7708 794665
Address: 62 Fieldgate St, Lon­don, E1 1ES
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Leeds Social Centre in court next week

This arti­cle was writ­ten by vol­un­teers at the Leeds-Brad­ford Inde­pen­dent Media Cen­tre fol­low­ing inter­views with vol­un­teers from The Com­mon Place, Leeds’ rad­i­cal, autonomous social cen­tre.

This arti­cle was writ­ten by vol­un­teers at the Leeds-Brad­ford Inde­pen­dent Media Cen­tre fol­low­ing inter­views with vol­un­teers from The Com­mon Place, Leeds’ rad­i­cal, autonomous social cen­tre.

The Com­mon­Place is a social cen­tre locat­ed in Leeds, accom­mo­dat­ing a broad range of com­mu­ni­ty groups. The Com­mon­Place has been open since 2005 when it received fund­ing to estab­lish a com­mu­ni­ty resource in cen­tral Leeds. Since then, it has been entire­ly vol­un­teer run. Despite hav­ing no wages to pay, The Com­mon­Place pays rent and bills just like any oth­er city cen­tre venue. More recent­ly, The Com­mon­Place has been financed by bar sales at com­mu­ni­ty ori­en­tat­ed club­nights, sup­ple­ment­ed by mem­ber­ship sub­scrip­tions and dona­tions. With­out income from the bar, they would be forced to close per­ma­nent­ly.

As a demo­c­ra­t­ic club, all major deci­sions are made at a gen­er­al meet­ing, open to all mem­bers.

At the end of July 2008, The Com­mon­Place has its Club Premis­es Cer­tifi­cate (license) with­drawn by Leeds City Coun­cil (LCC), under Sec­tion 90 of the Licens­ing Act 2003. The club believe this was unfair and are appeal­ing to have the licence rein­stat­ed. The Com­mon­Place can­not dis­cuss the specifics of the appeal process at this time due to legal rea­sons: They are keen for their sto­ry to be told in due course.

The Com­mon­Place has met with LCC twice in court (30th Sep­tem­ber, 28th Octo­ber), also del­e­gates of The Com­mon­Place met with the Licens­ing depart­ment on 15th Decem­ber 2008 with a view to resolv­ing mat­ters. On each occa­sion The Com­mon­Place has tried to deal with the coun­cil’s con­cerns in order to regain the orig­i­nal license.

A vol­un­teer from The Com­mon­Place said, “We were sor­ry to hear after our last meet­ing with them, that they did­n’t want to talk to us again before the hear­ing.” The appeal is due to be heard on 22nd to 26th Jan­u­ary 2009 at Leeds Mag­is­trates’ Court.

Anoth­er vol­un­teer, from the Bar Com­mit­tee said, “We’re puz­zled by how much inter­est the Police have shown since we’ve nev­er had any trou­ble or arrests when we’ve been putting on a night here … we just want to get things back to nor­mal.”

The Com­mon­Place are adamant that they are a mem­bers club, and that LCC have with­drawn this license wrong­ly; The Com­mon­Place is grate­ful for the con­tin­u­ing sup­port of mem­bers, donors and over 1000 Leeds res­i­dents who have signed a peti­tion in sup­port. To be kept informed, please see www.thecommonplace.org.uk where there are also instruc­tions on join­ing the mail­ing list and get­ting involved as a mem­ber.