Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

Samhain bagpipe gathering at Tara, plus action days 31st October ‑5th November

Samhain Bag­pipe Gath­er­ing
Feis-Teamhrach (The Great Feast of Tara)

Come cel­e­brate the Celtic New Year at Tara

Samhain
Samhain Bag­pipe Gath­er­ing
Feis-Teamhrach (The Great Feast of Tara)

Come cel­e­brate the Celtic New Year at Tara
Hill of Tara, near Navan, co Meath, Ire­land.

Relight­ing the Ancient Bea­con fires & Samhain Shindig

Bring your feast­ing food that you want to eat and share

Wed Oct 31st Light­ing Taras 7 Bea­cons And Feast
Thurs 1st/Fri 2nd Nov DAYS OF ACTION
Sat Nov 3rd Fire, Music and Ban­quet
Mon 5th (and every Mon) direct action Route walk.

Vig­il camp 00353 861 758557 Action camp 00353 861 537146

Call­ing all musi­cians, bards, per­form­ers & poets
Bring your flutes, whis­tles, drums and voic­es to the Halls of Tara. Big call out to all
BAGPIPE play­ers to gath­er on the Wed and Sat.
Call­ing all Peo­ple to join in the Defense of TARA
Act now to pre­serve this world her­itage site!

Fliers/posters to down­load at www.tarapixie.net

For direc­tions to Tara check the web­sites below
www.savetara.com www.tarawatch.org
www.tarapixie.net

SAVE IRELAND’S TARA VALLEY!

Edinburgh Temporary Autonomous Arts Exhibition

8.10.2007
FREAK, the Free and Reac­tive Edin­burgh Arts Kol­lec­tive, are trans­form­ing a derelict ware­house in Granton into an arts venue for a four day event from the 10th to the 14th of Octo­ber. There will be art exhi­bi­tions, live music, per­for­mances, films and edu­ca­tion­al work­shops.

Edinburgh Autonomous Arts exhibition8.10.2007
FREAK, the Free and Reac­tive Edin­burgh Arts Kol­lec­tive, are trans­form­ing a derelict ware­house in Granton into an arts venue for a four day event from the 10th to the 14th of Octo­ber. There will be art exhi­bi­tions, live music, per­for­mances, films and edu­ca­tion­al work­shops.

The trans­for­ma­tion is well under way. There are about 25 peo­ple on site all the time now with more arriv­ing all the time. If you’ve got spray­paint and spare time, or some­thing cre­ative to con­tribute, then go down today and help out. If you go down today or tom­morow you’ll see how gen­uine artists grafit­ti, and from Wednes­day they have a full pro­gramme of events.

Lancaster anti-supermarket protest camp & update

New protest camp goes up in Lan­cast­er with local res­i­dents in sup­port — nobody wants a super­mar­ket with a huge park­ing here!

New protest camp goes up in Lan­cast­er with local res­i­dents in sup­port — nobody wants a super­mar­ket with a huge park­ing here!
Lancaster Tesco site occupation 1
Lancaster Tesco site occupation 2
Lancaster Tesco site occupation 3
News Release
From: Lan­cast­er Cit­i­zens’ Alliance
For imme­di­ate release
Mon 8 Octo­ber 2007

Angry res­i­dents occu­py pro­posed super­mar­ket site

This morn­ing Lan­cast­er res­i­dents moved on to coun­cil owned land in Scot­forth — the site of a pro­posed super­mar­ket, rumoured to be Tesco’s. Locals are shocked by secret moves in the Coun­cil’s Cab­i­net to sell off land at Law­son Bridge, off the A6. Their mes­sage: they will not allow the coun­cil to sell off their town for what they call “dodgy devel­op­ment”.

Says local res­i­dent Deirdre Mason: “The coun­cil may love the idea of Tesco’s, Cen­tros Miller and the Bail­rigg Sci­ence Park, but local res­i­dents are con­cerned about the threat to local busi­ness­es and the unique char­ac­ter of the city! These devel­op­ments will be the death of Lan­cast­er. Time to say ENOUGH! to all these sor­did schemes. Let’s send a clear mes­sage to all these devel­op­ers: they are not wel­come in our town.”

The occu­pa­tion will last for 24 hours and will be fol­lowed by a protest out­side the Cab­i­net meet­ing tomor­row (Tues­day 9th Oct) at Lan­cast­er Town Hall from 9.30am onwards.

Res­i­dents are con­cerned about the way the Coun­cil is sell­ing off Lan­cast­er piece­meal, lead­ing to a town crip­pled by grid­lock, and hav­ing only “clone town” shops that are to be found in any high street in the coun­try. “The coun­cil is blink­ered when it comes to recog­nis­ing the his­tor­i­cal val­ue of our town, the
vibran­cy and high qual­i­ty of the local traders.” says Stephen Dick­in­son of Scot­forth. “They sold off our mar­ket — it’s now half dead. Now they want to see off the rest of the town cen­tre with Cen­tros Miller’s pro­posed mon­stros­i­ty and this mega super­mar­ket in Scot­forth. The time has come to say ‘Enough!’. It’s
time for our coun­cil­lors to lis­ten to us!”

-ENDS-

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please con­tact Deirdre Mason at the protest camp on:
07798 745613

Pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ties:
Mon 1pm at the protest camp, Law­sons Bridge, Scot­forth Road, Lan­cast­er
Tues­day 10am at Lan­cast­er Town Hall

Notes for the Edi­tor:
1 The land threat­ened by super­mar­ket devel­op­ment and cur­rent­ly under occu­pa­tion is near Law­son’s Bridge, between the rail­way line and the A6 (Scot­forth Road). Lan­cast­er City Coun­cil owns about 5.5acres there, imme­di­ate­ly to the south of Ray’s Dri­ve.

2 The land is cur­rent­ly rent­ed to a farmer for use as pas­ture. It is also well used by Scot­forth res­i­dents for dog-walk­ing and oth­er kinds of recre­ation, and there is a com­mu­ni­ty wood­land area at the north­ern end which is threat­ened by the devel­op­ment.

3 Lan­cast­er Coun­cil Cab­i­net will be dis­cussing the pro­posed sale in their Cab­i­net meet­ing on Tues­day, 9th Octo­ber. The meet­ing takes place at Lan­cast­er Town Hall at 10am.

——————————————————————————————-

Update — The fight car­ries on (and we will win!)

At this morn­ing’s Cab­i­net meet­ing of Lan­cast­er City Coun­cil coun­cil­lors vot­ed 8–2 to go ahead with start­ing the process of flog­ging the land for a super­mar­ket. This despite an over­whelm­ing dis­play of pub­lic out­rage. Hun­dreds of peo­ple wrote to the Cab­i­net Coun­cil­lors over the week. Scot­forth Parish Coun­cil decid­ing unan­i­mous­ly to oppose the super­mar­ket in an emer­gency meet­ing last night night and mak­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion to the Cab­i­net this morn­ing. Dozens of res­i­dents camp­ing out in the threat­ened field. A well attend­ed ral­ly this morn­ing. All this hap­pened in the space of five days — since we found out about the pro­posed deci­sion.

Cab­i­net Coun­cil­lors this morn­ing had the guts to refuse even to con­sult peo­ple pri­or to the sale.
The Con­ser­v­a­tive leader of the Coun­cil, Cllr Roger Mace said “we’ve had lots
of emails so there has been a con­sul­ta­tion already”. At this point sev­er­al mem­bers of the pub­lic could no longer con­tain their anger — shout­ing “that was us con­tact­ing you, not you con­sult­ing us” and storm­ing out.

Lib Dem Coun­cil­lor for Scot­forth East (which bor­ders onto Law­son’s Bridge)
John Gilbert said that “start­ing to mar­ket the land will allow con­sul­ta­tion
to take place” and “the pub­lic can con­sult all they want” (sic).

This ridicules any pre­tense of a demo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tem (with the notable excep­tion of our Green Coun­cil­lors who blew the whis­tle on the issue and joined in with the protest).

How­ev­er we are only at the start of this process and already hun­dreds of peo­ple are furi­ous about the plans and deter­mined to resist them every step of the way. We have already fought off two plan­ning appli­ca­tions for this site and we shall do so again.

In the mean­time, maybe we all need to recon­sid­er the way we shop — kick the habit and stop shop­ping at Tesco/Asda/Sainsbury’s/etc. Get to know your local shop keep­ers, sup­port inde­pen­dent small shops, set up food co-ops, before it is too late and they as well as your green fields are gone for­ev­er. These super­mar­ket giants are rid­ing rough-shod over com­mu­ni­ties and the envi­ron­ment every­where.

To find out more about these issues vis­it: http://www.tescopoly.org/

Oh, by the way, we’ve not for­got­ten about the mon­strous Cen­tros Miller plans for our city cen­tre either. We’re just as deter­mined to see them off too! More info here: http://www.itsourcity.org.uk/

ENOUGH Is ENOUGH!

Manchester Temporary Autonomous Arts Exhibition, Events & Festival of street art and creative subversion

Fol­low­ing the suc­cess of last years extrav­a­gan­za in Man­ches­ter’s North­ern quarter.…it’s hap­pen­ing again!

Manchester Temporary Autonomous Arts flierFol­low­ing the suc­cess of last years extrav­a­gan­za in Man­ches­ter’s North­ern quarter.…it’s hap­pen­ing again!
The 2nd annu­al Tem­po­rary Autonomous Arts fes­ti­val in Man­ches­ter 24–28th Octo­ber 2007.

Once again Man­ches­ter is join­ing the tide of col­lec­tive groups com­ing togeth­er to cre­ate a cul­tur­al, inter­ac­tive autonomous space where peo­ple are free to be, free to cre­ate and free to express them­selves.

Reclaim­ing space that has no oth­er imme­di­ate pur­pose, we will be repair­ing, mak­ing safe and improv­ing the build­ing we use before trans­form­ing it into a vibrant, organ­ic, tech­no artis­tic state­ment. Artists, musi­cians, writ­ers and per­form­ers who oth­er­wise would have no out­let, are invit­ed to dis­play their work unin­hib­it­ed by the nor­mal con­straints placed on the cur­rent artis­tic cli­mate. The space will be used respect­ful­ly and intel­li­gent­ly, for gen­uine com­mu­ni­ty devel­ope­ment, cre­at­ing fields of oppor­tu­ni­ty for a future at no cost or harm to any­one else.

We want to exhib­it all forms of art­work; draw­ings, paint­ings, sculp­tures big and small, pho­tog­ra­phy, instal­la­tions and more. Show­cas­ing poets and vocal­ists, films and per­for­mance, words and con­cepts born out of the free par­ty under­ground move­ment. These spaces of reclaimed free­dom have been mak­ing a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to an alter­na­tive art world and we want to bring it back to Man­ches­ter!

Wednes­day 24th Octo­ber

Come help us cre­ate the space. All artist and cre­ators are invit­ed to con­tribute and see the space morph through the day into an over­all work of art. This will lead into an evening of visu­als and film.

Thurs­day 25th Octo­ber

A day of skill­shar­ing and a cel­e­bra­tion of D.I.Y cul­ture.

If you would like to share a skill at the D.I.Y Day please get in touch ASAP.

Evening: This will hope­ful­ly lead to a per­for­mance by the jam ses­sion musi­cians and improv DIY music (bring instru­ments!)

Fri­day 26th Octo­ber

Heal­ing day, alter­na­tive ther­a­pies and relax­ation space from Noon til 7pm

If you would like to run a heal­ing work­shop or offer mas­sage or alter­na­tive ther­a­pies please email us. A full list­ing of what’s on offer will be here soon

Bicy­cle Art Parade 6pm Cen­tral Library, end­ing at TAA

It will not only be an amaz­ing bike ride to cel­e­brate the bicy­cle, to meet oth­er cyclists, to have an excuse to ride around, to feel part of a bike gang, to have a fun evening etc etc.but!this month it will also be Man­ches­ter’s FIRST EVER Bicy­cle Art Parade! So dress up your bike in tin­sel or glit­ter or make it look like a drag­on or a fly…whatever..lets get cre­ative!!!!

the last few months have seen around 120 cyclists on crit­i­cal mass, lets make this one even big­ger

Made in Lan­cashire

A night of cel­e­bra­tion of Lan­cashire! Wi’ hot pot, fan­cy dress and coun­try dancin’. From 9pm to mid­night

Sat­ur­day 27th Octo­ber

Work­shops for all through­out the day and includ­ing per­ma­cul­ture, truth poets

and from 7.30pm onwards the super fan­tas­tic TAA Cabaret open for any­one to take part with unique acts and per­for­mance.

If you have any skill shares, work­shops or activ­i­ties you would like to do in the space please email us and we will add it to the time table.

Street Blitz

From 14–28 Octo­ber 2007 we are host­ing Man­ches­ter’s first ever Street Blitz, the two week fes­ti­val of street art and cre­ative sub­ver­sion.

Dur­ing the pro­posed two weeks we want you to use Man­ches­ter as an open gallery. There is a map of the city primed and ready for Blitzers to post their activ­i­ties, no mat­ter how big or small, onto a map over­lay.

Install your art or any­thing which changes the per­spec­tive on our city then get online and post it onto the emp­ty map on the Street Blitz web­site at www.streetblitz.org/manchester. You can add a descrip­tion and any pho­tos of your work. There will also be room for com­ments on each place­mark which can also be used to tell us if the art­work is still there or if the miser­ly bureau­crats got there first.

THIS IS YOUR CITY
Leave your mark!

info@forbiddenartsmanchester.org.uk
http://www.forbiddenartsmanchester.org.uk

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 72, OCTOBER 2007

Com­piled and sent out by Ris­ing Tide UK: info at risingtide.org.uk
To receive this News Sheet month­ly, email news-sub­scribe at risingtide.org.uk
with the sub­ject line ‘sub­scribe’ (with­out the quotes).

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) NATIONAL DAY OF LOCAL ACTION VS. ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND — 15.10.07
2) SAVE SWALLOWS WOOD — OCTOBER 2007 UPDATE
3) NATIONAL CLIMATE CAMP ACTION PLANNING MEETING — 3–4.11.07 OXFORD
4) CLIMATE CAMPS — 2008 GERMANY AND WORLDWIDE!
5) TARA UPDATE — 22.9.07 IRELAND
6) CRITICAL MASS UPDATES — NATIONWIDE
7) PLYMOUTH ENVIRONMENT CENTRE FILM NIGHTS — AUTUMN 2007
8) TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ART — OCT ’07, EDINBURGH & MANCHESTER
9) WRITE IN DEFENCE OF ISOLATED PERUVIAN TRIBES — 17.9.07
10) STUDENT CLIMATE PROJECT LAUNCH GATHERING – OXFORD, 30.11–2.12.07

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) ROSSPORT SOLIDARITY DEMOS — 14.9.07 LEEDS, LONDON, BRISTOL, READING,
MADRID & IRELAND
2) DIRECT ACTION IN BRISTOL — AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2007
3) WHY CARBON TRADING ISN’T WORKING — ARTICLES 2006/7
4) GAGGED! SOUTH WALES ANARCHIST NEWSLETTER — SEPTEMBER 2007
5) FEDERAL COURT BLOCKS SHELLS ARCTIC DRILLING — 14.9.07
6) BANK PULLS SAKHALIN‑2 FUNDING — 15.8.07
7) “FLOOD SUMMIT” AT AIRPORT — 3.9.07 DONCASTER, YORKS.
8) COAL ACTIONS IN AUSTRALIA — 2/3.9.07
9) GLOBAL ACTIONS AGAINST HEAVY INDUSTRY — 12.9.07
10) GREEK DIRECT ACTION — SEPTEMBER 2007
11) CRITICAL MASS AND CARFREE DAY IN BRUSSELS — 24.9.07
12) ART NOT OIL 2007 GALLERY HITS 50

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) NATIONAL DAY OF LOCAL ACTION AGAINST ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND — 15.10.07
RBS, the self-described ‘Oil and Gas Bank’ and sec­ond-largest bank in
Europe is the lead­ing financier of cli­mate change. From West Africa to the
Ecuado­ri­an rain­for­est, from the North Sea to the Mid­dle East, RBS loans
play a key role in forc­ing open the new car­bon fron­tier. The thir­ty oil
and gas finance deals RBS signed between 2001 and 2006 locked us all into
655 mil­lion tonnes of emis­sions over the next 15 years — more than the
UK’s cur­rent annu­al emis­sions total!
On 15th Octo­ber, get togeth­er with your local group, build on con­nec­tions
made at the Camp, reach out to oth­ers in your area and con­front RBS with
your own cho­sen style of cre­ative direct action.

To find your near­est RBS branch or office:
www.rbs.co.uk/microsites/general/branch_locator/step1.asp
Down­load Plat­for­m’s report ‘The Oil and Gas Bank’:
www.carbonweb.org/documents/Oil_&_Gas_Bank.pdf
For help with plan­ning effec­tive actions: www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk

One such action is being planned in con­junc­tion with West Corn­wall Friends
of the Earth; Out­side Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, Green St (off Lemon Quay),
Truro,
12 noon, Mon 15th Oct. Con­tact RTUK for oth­ers.

2) SAVE SWALLOWS WOOD — OCTOBER 2007 UPDATE
A lot has been hap­pen­ing in the last few weeks, includ­ing the inau­gur­al
Glos­sop Crit­i­cal Mass. Also, there are two URGENT let­ter actions that they
need your help with. They should only take a few min­utes of your time.
www.saveswallowswood.org.uk

3) NATIONAL CLIMATE CAMP ACTION PLANNING MEETING — 3–4.11.07 OXFORD
The Cli­mate Camp did­n’t stop cli­mate change — but it’s part of a grow­ing
social move­ment that can! Come and take the next steps for­ward at the
upcom­ing UK-wide meet­ing on Nov 3–4 in Oxford. Every­one is wel­come,
whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.
www.climatecamp.org.uk

4) CLIMATE CAMPS — 2008 GERMANY AND WORLDWIDE!
Fol­low­ing the mod­el estab­lished by the Camp for Cli­mate Action in the UK,
plans are afoot for a Cli­mate-Action Camp in Ger­many in 2008. This will
include knowl­edge exchange (in work­shops), self-organ­ised liv­ing that
min­imis­es the eco­log­i­cal foot­print, net­work­ing and direct action. There
are plans for sim­i­lar camps to be set up next year in sev­er­al coun­tries.
watch this space…
www.climatecamp.org.uk

http://www.klimacamp.org/

5) TARA UPDATE — 22.9.07 IRELAND
They are des­per­ate for more peo­ple and sup­plies on site. There are
cur­rent­ly just 20 peo­ple try­ing to stop work all over the Tara Skryne
val­ley.
www.tarapixie.net
www.savetara.com
www.circlecommunity.org
For recent videos & pho­tos of protests see;
http://livevideo.com/tarapixie

6) CRITICAL MASS UPDATES — NATIONWIDE
For info. and updates check;
http://www.urban75.com/Action/critical.html

7) PLYMOUTH ENVIRONMENT CENTRE FILM NIGHTS — AUTUMN 2007
Includ­ing “Reclaim Pow­er” 19.10.07 at 7pm fol­lowed by dis­cus­sion with
Ris­ing Tide rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

http://plymouthenvironmentcentre.org.uk/events.php#film-nights

8) TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ART SHOWS — OCTOBER 2007 EDINBURGH & MANCHESTER
Edin­burgh 10th-14th Octo­ber
Man­ches­ter 24th-28th Octo­ber
For fur­ther info. check;
http://www.randomartists.org/

9) WRITE IN DEFENCE OF ISOLATED PERUVIAN TRIBES — 17.9.07
Two com­pa­nies plan­ning to explore for oil in Peru­vian rain­for­est have
revealed their sen­si­tive plans to ‘com­mu­ni­cate’ with the pre­vi­ous­ly
uncon­tact­ed inhab­i­tants using mega­phones! In the past, oil com­pa­ny work­ers
in the Ama­zon region have been killed by iso­lat­ed Indi­ans. Despite this
risk to their own work­ers, and the equal dan­ger of spread­ing fatal
dis­eases to the Indi­ans, the com­pa­nies — Bar­rett Resources of the US and
Rep­sol YPF of Spain — have refused to sus­pend their plans.
http://www.survival-international.org/news/2502
You can help by writ­ing a let­ter;
http://www.survival-international.org/actnow/letters/isolatedindians

10) STUDENT CLIMATE PROJECT LAUNCH GATHERING – OXFORD, 30.11–2.12.07

‘The Stu­dent Cli­mate Project came out of dis­cus­sions at the 2007 Cli­mate
Camp, and
seeks bring togeth­er stu­dents to take col­lec­tive action against the root
caus­es of
Cli­mate Change. It will also devel­op ways to build the stu­dent move­ment
and deal
with Cli­mate Change issues in the edu­ca­tion sys­tem. The project is
non-hier­ar­chi­cal
and based on con­sen­sus deci­sion mak­ing, and the Launch Gath­er­ing is the
per­fect
oppor­tu­ni­ty to get involved, share your ideas and plan for action. See
www.studentclimateproject.org.uk’

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-

1) ROSSPORT SOLIDARITY DEMOS — 14.9.07 LEEDS, LONDON, BRISTOL, READING,
MADRID & IRELAND
There were a series of demon­stra­tions held in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the day of
action against Shel­l’s plans for a gas pipeline & refin­ery in Mayo,
Ire­land.
In Ross­port itself over 150 peo­ple occu­pied the refin­ery site.
Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide held a sol­i­dar­i­ty demo at a Shell Garage in East­ville,
Bris­tol with leaflets and ban­ners.
For more details about the var­i­ous actions check;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5090
http://www.corribsos.com/index.php?id=1&type=page

2) DIRECT ACTION IN BRISTOL — AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2007
Activists in Bris­tol have been busy. Parts of three golf cours­es have been
dug up and the mes­sage “deca­dent waste of water” sprayed near a club
house. A mobile phone mast has been sab­o­taged. A non-pas­sen­ger line which
trans­ports cars and fos­sil fuel to the Mid­lands was cut three quar­ters of
the way through in two places and marked with high vis­i­bil­i­ty paint. A
warn­ing ban­ner read­ing: “Stop: Trees on line” was fixed across the line
sev­er­al hun­dred yards in front of this.
Also, with­in the last 6 months, the front tyres of forty 4x4s have been
punc­tured in and around Bris­tol.
Final­ly, a “cor­po­rate enter­tain­ment” com­pa­ny called 4‑Play, which pro­vides
off road dri­ving for 4x4s in the south west, has had vehi­cles spray
paint­ed with

“4‑play — blow-job the plan­et”.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5050

3) WHY CARBON TRADING ISN’T WORKING — ARTICLES 2006/7
An excel­lent series of arti­cles on why the neolib­er­al approach to cli­mate
change isn’t work­ing can be found at;
http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/subject/climate/

4) GAGGED! ANARCHIST NEWSLETTER – SOUTH WALES, SEPT 2007
Down­load the PDF here;
https://lists.riseup.net/www/d_read/gagged/gagged19.pdf
Alter­na­tive­ly you can read it here;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5052

5) FEDERAL COURT BLOCKS SHELLS ARCTIC DRILLING — 14.9.07
A fed­er­al court has denied Shel­l’s lat­est request to lift an order
block­ing the com­pa­ny’s Arc­tic Ocean drilling. This rul­ing like­ly dooms the
Dutch oil giant’s drilling plans, at least for this year.
http://www.pacificenvironment.org/

6) BANK PULLS SAKHALIN‑2 FUNDING — 15.8.07
The Euro­pean Bank of Recon­struc­tion and Devel­op­ment has decid­ed to pull
its fund­ing for the $20-plus bil­lion Sakhalin‑2 liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas
project, locat­ed in Rus­si­a’s Far East.
Since Jan­u­ary, EBRD and the Sakhalin Ener­gy share­hold­ers (Gazprom, Roy­al
Dutch Shell, Mit­sui and Mit­subishi) have held talks over the pro­jec­t’s
finance. EBRD cut off dis­cus­sions in favour of financ­ing oth­er projects,
such as those that pro­mote sus­tain­able ener­gy.
http://www.pacificenvironment.org/

7) PROTEST AS RDA HOLDS “FLOOD SUMMIT” AT AIRPORT — 3.9.07 DONCASTER, YORKS.
York­shire For­ward (Region­al Devel­op­ment Agency) held an out­ra­geous “Flood
Sum­mit” at Finning­ley air­port. Local peo­ple vis­it­ed with pop-up tents and
ban­ners to leaflet the con­fer­ence’s par­tic­i­pants and hold alter­na­tive
work­shops high­light­ing the link between avi­a­tion growth and wors­en­ing
cli­mate change.
The con­fer­ence was intend­ed to con­grat­u­late the RDA on their response to
the recent floods. The choice of venue shows just how out of touch with
real­i­ty these half-wits are.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5021

8) COAL ACTIONS IN AUSTRALIA — 2/3.9.07
On the 2nd Sep­tem­ber, twelve Green­peace activists were arrest­ed at the
world’s biggest coal port at New­cas­tle, 160km north of Syd­ney, after
paint­ing the mes­sage “Aus­tralia Push­ing Export Coal” on the side of a coal
ship and unfurl­ing a large ban­ner in Chi­nese call­ing on Chi­na to be
cau­tious of John Howard and George Bush’s attempts to sab­o­tage Kyoto. The
protest comes at the start of the 2007 APEC (Asia Pacif­ic Eco­nom­ic
Coop­er­a­tion) forum meet­ing being host­ed by Aus­tralia.
http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/news-and-events/media/releases/climate-change/apec-coal-protest
The fol­low­ing day activists locked them­selves on to a coal con­vey­or belt,
forc­ing the shut-down of a gen­er­a­tor and halv­ing pro­duc­tion from
Vic­to­ri­a’s biggest coal fired pow­er sta­tion.
http://www.realactiononclimatechange.blogspot.com/

9) GLOBAL ACTIONS AGAINST HEAVY INDUSTRY — 12.9.07
Peo­ple in South Africa, Ice­land, Trinidad, Den­mark and Amer­i­ca held a
series of coor­di­nat­ed protests against heavy indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion. This is
the first event of a new and grow­ing glob­al move­ment that began at the
2007 Sav­ing Ice­land protest camp in Ölfus, Ice­land.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5067

10) GREEK DIRECT ACTION — SEPTEMBER 2007
For direct action news from Greece, check;
http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/

11) CRITICAL MASS AND CARFREE DAY IN BRUSSELS — 24.9.07
For details and some great pics see;
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/09/381930.html

12) ART NOT OIL 2007 GALLERY HITS 50

and over 1500 hits. Take a look and send in your own work:
www.artnotoil.org.uk

Shell to Sea Two and half years later and still going strong! October 12th day of action

In 2005 small west of Ire­land com­mu­ni­ty became the focus of atten­tion of the peo­ple in Ire­land. Five small farm­ers in Ross­port Co Mayo (one the most remote and iso­lat­ed places in North­west Europe) had stood up to a multi­na­tion­al con­glom­er­a­tion of Shell, Sta­toil and Marathon in fear they would die if Shell built their unprece­dent­ed on shore refin­ery.

In 2005 small west of Ire­land com­mu­ni­ty became the focus of atten­tion of the peo­ple in Ire­land. Five small farm­ers in Ross­port Co Mayo (one the most remote and iso­lat­ed places in North­west Europe) had stood up to a multi­na­tion­al con­glom­er­a­tion of Shell, Sta­toil and Marathon in fear they would die if Shell built their unprece­dent­ed on shore refin­ery.

The Irish State’s reac­tion to this was to inde­fi­nate­ly imprison them. This tran­spired to be 94 days at which point Shell decid­ed it was doing more harm than good by impris­on­ing as there was a series of direct actions and mass demon­stra­tion in their defence http://www.indymedia.ie/article/71388. In the weeks run­ning up to this some activists made con­tact with com­mu­ni­ty activists and start­ed a nation­al Shell to sea cam­paign. The unbe­liev­able sto­ry of what was going on in the west of Ire­land was spread through Europe through the meet­ing of activists at the G8 in Ster­ling in July 2008.

The sto­ry is quite unbe­liev­able. Shell and their part­ners are attempt­ing to destroy an unspoilt part of the west Ire­land, by run­ning a dan­ger­ous pipeline through the vil­lage of Ross­port to an inland refin­ery that will spew hun­dreds of thou­sands of tonnes of methane each year in the local envi­ron­ment. On top of this they are effec­tive­ly rob­bing the peo­ple in Ire­land of €51 bil­lion of Irish gas through a dodgy deal cut with cor­rupt politi­cians that at the time was called “eco­nom­ic trea­son”.

But lots of things are wrong and why should peo­ple all across the world we focus on this? Well its sim­ple- we can win and if we do the effects will be immense as a prece­dent will have been set that will not only effect Ire­land but Europe and beyond.

So what hap­pened since 2005 and where are we now?

Tra­di­tion­al sec­tar­i­an­ism was put aside and activists of dif­fer­ent back­grounds worked togeth­er form­ing what the media would lat­er bill “the looney alliance of anar­chists and repub­li­cans”. Through­out the sum­mer of 2005 and until the late sum­mer of 2006 things worked very well as con­stant pick­ets shut down Shel­l’s oper­a­tion in Mayo and pres­sure mount­ed on Shell and the Irish State.

Then at the end of Sep­tem­ber 2006 the State and Shell made their move. Over 200 gar­dai (Irish police) were bil­let­ed to Mayo. The top cop said he would have the protests fin­ished in 48hours. The com­mu­ni­ty and nation­al cam­paigns response was immense. Pick­et­ing went on through the night incase the Gar­dai tried
to cor­don activists away from the site. On the night of the sec­ond of Octo­ber the cops even­tu­al­ly turned out in force. In an effort to main­tain the year and half long pick­et cars were parked block­ing the refin­ery and behind them the com­mu­ni­ty sat in front of the gates. In area with low­est crime rate in Ire­land 200 Gar­dai pulled and dragged com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dents from the gates hos­pi­tal­is­ing two.

This lead to a surge in activ­i­ty with much cam­paign activ­i­ty around the coun­try and inter­na­tion­al­ly, focused on days of action in Ross­port. The Gar­da reac­tion to these days of Action was vio­lent cul­mi­nat­ing in a baton charge on Novem­ber the tenth. The cam­paign then in the face of what seemed like more vio­lence can­celled a pro­posed day of action on the 24th of Novem­ber 2006. Many saw this as deci­sive moment for the cam­paign as momen­tum passed out of our hands. Every­one realised the fol­ly of
it, but as with a lot of things in Shell to Sea it is a learn­ing process. Now it seems it was not as deci­sive as it seemed as things build again.

This sum­mer the cam­paign burst back to life by vic­to­ri­ous­ly oppos­ing shel­l’s attempt to install cab­ins for works in the bay — read more. This was fol­lowed with a very intense week which saw three fish­er­men includ­ing Pat “the chief” O Don­nell and his son and a friend impris­oned, the site was shut down for a day. On the fish­er­men’s release
an inva­sion of the con­struc­tion site took place. Over Sep­tem­ber there have been three site inva­sions and two days with numer­ous peo­ple blockad­ing traf­fic attempt­ing to access the site — read more.

All this occurred in the run up to the day of action on Sep­tem­ber 14th unique in that it had a pre-announced plan. The plan was sim­ple — go there and sit on the road and no vehi­cles get on site. The run-up to the day was ner­vous. The big ques­tion was- could Shell to Sea with its nation­al sup­port in town (or coun­try­side rather) reassert the right of ordi­nary peo­ple over multi­na­tion­als in Erris and real­ly push for­ward the already build­ing momen­tum behind the cam­paign. The con­di­tions were cer­tain­ly right- Shell were and still are run­ning into enor­mous prob­lems as build­ing has vir­tu­al­ly come to a stand­still due to poor qual­i­ty con­crete, con­stant protest and the lack of a pipeline route. On Fri­day the 14th about 150 — 200 peo­ple turned from around the coun­try and this was matched by a size­able mayo turnout.

The total pro­tes­tor turnout was matched by a size­able Gar­da pres­ence. As the pro­tes­tors shut down the main entrance to the site with the sit down the Gar­dai thought they would be clever and direct traf­fic around the sit down and bore us to tears. After this long you would imag­ine the cops would realise Shell to Sea is a lit­tle more on the ball than this. In the lack of the any trucks to meet pro­tes­tors we decid­ed to go and take a look and shut the site down. So it was up, over, under and through the gate as the protest made lit­tle a sec­ondary gate as well (espe­cial­ly con­struct­ed for the day) — read more. The Gar­dai respond­ed with their usu­al heavy hand­ed tac­tics. Regard­less of Shel­l’s rub­bish spin, RTE’s (Ire­lands state broad­cast­er) des­per­ate attempts to pla­cate Shell and and the gar­dai’s offi­cial line it was plain to see who had won the day and that the train is firm­ly back on the tracks.

It’s undoubt­ed that Shell to Sea is not yet at the dizzy­ing heights it was at 12 or 24 months ago. How­ev­er things are mov­ing in a sim­i­lar direc­tion at the moment. We have learned the mis­takes of plac­ing too much faith in politi­cians to pull a deal out the hat. With this knowl­edge it could just be third time lucky for Shell to Sea.

Through­out this peri­od the impact on sol­i­dar­i­ty from the Eng­land Scot­land and Wales has had an enor­mous effect. It has been instru­men­tal in keep­ing the sol­i­dar­i­ty camp con­tin­u­ing through peo­ple com­ing stay­ing a week or a year, fundrais­ing and dona­tions have also allowed the camp to expand. Hos­pi­tal­i­ty to cam­paign speak­ers was always sec­ond to none. Above all the impact that peo­ple com­ing has had a pro­found impact on the moral of peo­ple in Ross­port. They launched their oppo­si­tion in 1999 and it took six years to get Nation­al atten­tion and then imme­di­ate­ly peo­ple in the UK, once they heard, took up the chal­lenge. There is still more peo­ple from the UK have to offer this strug­gle.

Anoth­er day of Action has been called for Octo­ber the 12th as the sit­u­a­tion is heat­ing up as the pres­sure mounts up on Shell and polit­i­cal pres­sure on the greens. These days of Action will not work
on there own — if you cant trav­el we all need to be active in our com­mu­ni­ties organ­is­ing meet­ings, pos­ter­ing and rais­ing the issue where pos­si­ble. These days are how­ev­er cru­cial to pile on the pres­sure -
show­ing in a vis­i­ble robust way the lev­el of oppo­si­tion to this project and high­light­ing the bru­tal­i­ty of what is an every­day occur­rence in Ross­port.

At this stage many of us are scratch­ing our heads as to why mayo peo­ple can’t do this at the height of sum­mer but then again what else would you be doing on windy Fri­day morn­ing in Octo­ber? Ok fair enough we all do but it will cer­tain­ly be worth it to force this to its log­i­cal con­clu­sion after 8 years. For us it’s a few days of a trip to Ross­port for oth­ers it’s the high­light and morale boost­er in a 8 year strug­gle that must and will end soon When peo­ple arrive its intense­ly appre­ci­at­ed as it shows they are not strug­gling on their won and peo­ple care. What are you doing on Octo­ber the 12th? Organ­ise a pick­et at the Irish embassy or a Shell fill­ing Sta­tion or their head­quar­ters. Or if pos­si­ble trav­el to Ross­port. Trav­el to Dublin for Thurs­day at six and book a tick­et on the Dublin bus­es. Book ear­ly though. Come you need a hol­i­day!
(for tick­ets phone or text 0851609850 in Dublin) Cork — corkshelltosea@gmail.com or call 0851141170 for gen­er­al info.

www.rossportsolidaritycamp.com, www.shelltosea.com www.indymedia.ie/mayo

Camp Hope — 20/21st October vs Gloucestershire Airport expansion

Camp For Hope At Staver­ton Air­port, Glouces­ter­shire 20/21st Octo­ber. Inspired by the Camp for Cli­mate Action 2007 activists and local res­i­dents are organ­is­ing a camp to protest the expan­sion of Glouces­ter­shire Air­port at Staver­ton. “Camp Hope” will take place at a secret loca­tion near the air­port on the 20/21 Octo­ber.

Gloucestershire Airport sandwich boardCamp For Hope At Staver­ton Air­port, Glouces­ter­shire 20/21st Octo­ber. Inspired by the Camp for Cli­mate Action 2007 activists and local res­i­dents are organ­is­ing a camp to protest the expan­sion of Glouces­ter­shire Air­port at Staver­ton. “Camp Hope” will take place at a secret loca­tion near the air­port on the 20/21 Octo­ber.

Loca­tion is near the air­port and to be announced on our web­site on the evening of 19th Octo­ber.

Staver­ton Air­port want to extend their run­way and increase ser­vices. The extra noise and fumes will dam­age the local envi­ron­ment and the huge amounts of CO2 will add to glob­al warm­ing.

We need to put our chil­dren’s future and the envi­ron­ment before the prof­its of an air­port.

Sat­ur­day 20th Oct:

Learn about glob­al warm­ing, what it means to you and your chil­dren. Learn what you can do about it.

Work­shops and dis­cus­sions start at 13:00pm

Lead speak­er David Drew MP

Sun­day 21st Oct:

Peace­ful protest against the air­port’s impacts on noise, the envi­ron­ment, and the area’s image

The air­port claims “only a small minor­i­ty are opposed to the devel­op­ment,” Come and show them that you are not part of a small minor­i­ty by mak­ing your voice heard

You can come and camp for the week­end, or just come for the Sat­ur­day or Sun­day.

For pub­lic trans­port to the air­port, take the 94 bus to Staver­ton Bridge. Also, park­ing is avail­able. Stew­ards will direct you from the air­port entrance

Take a look at http://campforhopeatstaverton.blogspot.com or www.myspace.com/campofhope and http://kevsclimatecolumn.blogspot.com For more infor­ma­tion email CampForTheFuture@btinternet.com

If any­one has access to any of the fol­low­ing it could be very use­ful :

* Mar­quees, yurts, car­a­vans, tem­po­rary struc­tures, tents
* Wood for build­ing (espe­cial­ly 2x2, 3x2, 18mm ply)
* Nails, wood­screws etc.
* Wood for burn­ing
* Food (veg­an, local­ly pro­duced, organ­ic)
* Water con­tain­ers
* Water pip­ing
* Water
* Hay/Straw
* Vans and trail­ers
* Beer
* Scraps of mate­r­i­al (the big­ger the bet­ter)
* Banners/Banner mak­ing equip­ment
* Peo­ple to give workshops/speeches
* Enter­tain­ment
* Cable ties
* Tarpaulains
* Cara­bi­nas
* Solar elec­tric­i­ty (PV) pan­els
* 12v Bat­ter­ies
* Wheel­ie bins
* Buck­ets
* Rope
* Gaffa tape (what every site is built on)

We also need peo­ple to help to organ­ise and pub­li­cise the event. If you have any time which you can use to help out it would be great­ly appre­ci­at­ed.

Report from Anti London Olympics/regeneration march and meeting plus comment

Sun­day the 23rd Sep­tem­ber was a sad day in the his­to­ry of gar­den­ing. It was the day the Manor Gar­dens Allot­ments were closed by the Olympic Deliv­ery Author­i­ty.

Manor allotments demoSun­day the 23rd Sep­tem­ber was a sad day in the his­to­ry of gar­den­ing. It was the day the Manor Gar­dens Allot­ments were closed by the Olympic Deliv­ery Author­i­ty.

It was also the day for­mer allot­ment hold­ers and many oth­er peo­ple decid­ed to march and demon­strate their con­cern over the way in which devel­op­ment and so called regen­er­a­tion is soak­ing up much need­ed green space. Mar­tin Slavin an Olympic researcher was on the march and com­ments “ … so called regen­er­a­tion projects like the Olympics are more about the careers of those involved in the Olympic indus­try, and the prof­its of devel­op­ers and con­struc­tion com­pa­nies than they are about improv­ing the lives of ordi­nary peo­ple”.

The Manor Gar­dens Allot­ments, were a lit­tle piece of the coun­try­side in Lon­don, and were giv­en to the gar­den­ers of East Lon­don by May­or Vil­liers, an old fash­ioned phil­an­thropist, he was ded­i­cat­ed to improv­ing the life of work­ing class Eas­t­en­ders by a trans­fer of resources from him (rich) to the peo­ple of East Lon­don (poor). As well as the allot­ments, the Olympic project has swal­lowed up a huge chunk of land in East Lon­don, most of it com­pul­so­ri­ly pur­chased. The acqui­si­tion of the Olympic Park land is vir­tu­al­ly a mir­ror image of what Major Vil­liers did all those years ago.

The com­pul­so­ry pur­chase of the Olympic Park­land has been fund­ed by pub­lic mon­ey, and as such it can be argued that it should stay in pub­lic own­er­ship, post Olympics, how­ev­er, exact­ly what will hap­pen to the land remains unde­cid­ed, but both Ken Liv­ing­stone and Ruth Kel­ly have pub­licly stat­ed that they plan to bank role the Olympic project by sell­ing off land with­in the park to devel­op­ers when the Games are over. Major Vil­liers would no doubt turn in his grave, as his beau­ti­ful allot­ments along with vir­tu­al­ly the whole STATE AREA site is bull­dozed for a project which will most like­ly result in a trans­fer of land from pub­lic to pri­vate own­er­ship. As the Olympic project runs fur­ther and fur­ther into finan­cial dif­fi­cul­ty the pres­sure will be on to claw back as much mon­ey as pos­si­ble. This will inevitably mean get­ting into bed with prop­er­ty devel­op­ers who, along with the con­struc­tion com­pa­nies, will be the main ben­e­fi­cia­ries of a project that has been flawed from the very begin­ning.

An added tragedy to this sto­ry is that much what will form Olympic Park was pre­vi­ous­ly avail­able for use, on a non-income depen­dent basis, a cycle cir­cuit, allot­ments, social hous­ing, foot­ball pitch­es, lit­tle nooks and cran­nies, were all sorts of mar­gin­al busi­ness and artists had found a foothold. There was also a rave scene at Hack­ney Wick, with tired and dazed ravers leav­ing par­ties on Sun­day morn­ings whilst the well dressed con­gre­ga­tions of the many African Church­es filed by. It was an area that had grown organ­i­cal­ly over more thaan a cen­tu­ry and though it has some rough edges the area had an authen­tic­i­ty rarely found in 21st cen­tu­ry Lon­don. This has been lost to what will more than like­ly be an Olympic lega­cy of expen­sive flats with­in gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties, a ster­ile, pri­vate­ly owned area sim­i­lar to the dock­lands.

It would be impos­si­ble to sell the Olympics to the nation for 3 weeks of sport, it is sim­ply too expen­sive, so those mak­ing their liv­ing out of this project have mar­ket­ed it on the sup­posed ben­e­fits of a lega­cy which remains unplanned. One of the prob­lems is that New labour has con­trol of the project, it has cen­tral gov­ern­ment back­ing and with New Labour also con­trol­ling all 4 of the bor­oughs in which the Olympic Park is sit­u­at­ed, and with the Olympic Deliv­ery Author­i­ty award­ing plan­ning per­mis­sion to itself the Olympic project can be pushed through vir­tu­al­ly unchecked.

Sunday’s march from Hack­ney Town Hall to the new secu­ri­ty gates of the Olympic con­struc­tion site was a sign of the public’s mis­giv­ings over this deeply flawed project. After the march there was a meet­ing where dis­cus­sions were held relat­ing to devel­op­ment and regen­er­a­tion. One inter­est­ing point cov­ered in this dis­cus­sion was the way these large projects evolve. First plans are made, then a so-called con­sul­ta­tion takes place and then the work begins. How­ev­er the meet­ing agreed that the con­sul­ta­tions were gen­er­al­ly a pub­lic rela­tions exer­cise and that they made lit­tle dif­fer­ence to the out­come of projects, which are usu­al­ly forced through despite any pub­lic mis­giv­ings. The Olympics appears to be a case in point.

Tara frontline Action ‑avin it

On Mon­day Sep­tem­ber 24th, thir­ty brave cul­tur­al con­ser­va­tion­ists donned face paints and head­ed off on a route walk from the Rath Lugh direct action camp. Film direc­tor and actor Stu­art Townsend, fresh from the high­ly suc­cess­ful aer­i­al pho­to­graph on the hill attend­ed by an esti­mat­ed 3,000 peo­ple on Sun­day, arrived with four mas­sive bags of shop­ping for Tara’s sol­diers before every­one set off. Stuart’s con­tin­u­ing sup­port is mas­sive­ly appre­ci­at­ed!

On Mon­day Sep­tem­ber 24th, thir­ty brave cul­tur­al con­ser­va­tion­ists donned face paints and head­ed off on a route walk from the Rath Lugh direct action camp. Film direc­tor and actor Stu­art Townsend, fresh from the high­ly suc­cess­ful aer­i­al pho­to­graph on the hill attend­ed by an esti­mat­ed 3,000 peo­ple on Sun­day, arrived with four mas­sive bags of shop­ping for Tara’s sol­diers before every­one set off. Stuart’s con­tin­u­ing sup­port is mas­sive­ly appre­ci­at­ed!

Once on route activists erect­ed bar­ri­cades along the paths of the dig­gers and bull­doz­ers to slow destruc­tion work. Activists pro­ceed­ed to Baron­stown where sev­en to eight dig­gers were occu­pied, climbed and danced upon. The walk con­tin­ued as our mer­ry band arrived at Col­lier­stown, an ancient Fian­na grave­yard. The two dig­gers work­ing when we arrived were quick­ly halt­ed with peo­ple climb­ing into buck­ets of dig­gers, onto roofs and onto their tracks. Songs were sung and peo­ple danced. Work was halt­ed for half an hour before scouts indi­cat­ed that machin­ery was work­ing up ahead at Trevet. We head­ed there and on the way occu­pied anoth­er dig­ger. The dri­ver of this dig­ger refused to turn off his engine despite the fact that activists occu­pied his machine, a clear vio­la­tion of health and safe­ty laws and a sack­able offense.

Our next stop was Trevet, where one bull­doz­er was pre­vent­ed from work­ing by activists. It was then that the Gar­dai made their appear­ance. Tak­ing some of our group aside, names were tak­en and no fur­ther action occurred. As our walk was slight­ly behind sched­ule, when Gar­da offi­cers approached we decid­ed to pick up the pace, keep­ing twen­ty to forty feet between our­selves and the law. Offi­cers con­tin­ued to fol­low us for anoth­er 100 metres before head­ing back the way they came. Hav­ing stopped work for hours it was near din­ner time so we head­ed back to base camp. Through­out the day as we passed the sacred sites in the path of the pro­posed motor­way short talks were giv­en about the his­tor­i­cal and archae­o­log­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of each site. No one was arrest­ed and a great day was had by all. The cam­paign to pro­tect Tara from the mon­ey mad mile con­tin­ues pick­ing up pace after the phe­nom­e­nal suc­cess of the inter­na­tion­al Harpists for Tara event and John Quigley’s stun­ning aer­i­al pho­tog­ra­phy. Every Mon­day route walks will con­tin­ue.

Com­ple­tion of the M3 through the Tara Val­ley is years away and there is every­thing to play for! Be at the Tara Sol­i­dar­i­ty Vig­il camp on the hill by 9.30 am or at Rath Lugh by 10.00am. Please come, please sup­port and net­work!

www.tarapixie.net
www.savetara.com
www.tarawatch.org
www.indymedia.ie

Sun 23rd Sep: Rally Against Olympic Evictions — on Allotment Demolition Day

Details of March & Ral­ly Against Olympic Evic­tions on Allot­ment Demo­li­tion Day — Sun­day 23rd Sept
Meet 2pm out­side Hack­ney Town Hall

The demo will be in sol­i­dar­i­ty with oth­er evict­ed groups such as Clays Lane Hous­ing Co-op who have already been evict­ed from their homes and traveller/Gypsy com­mu­ni­ties soon to be evict­ed. The demo in Hack­ney calls into ques­tion the exces­sive social, eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal costs of the Olympics as a cat­a­lyst for (de)regeneration.

Marsh Lane allotment protest flierMarsh Lane allotmentsDetails of March & Ral­ly Against Olympic Evic­tions on Allot­ment Demo­li­tion Day — Sun­day 23rd Sept
Meet 2pm out­side Hack­ney Town Hall

The demo will be in sol­i­dar­i­ty with oth­er evict­ed groups such as Clays Lane Hous­ing Co-op who have already been evict­ed from their homes and traveller/Gypsy com­mu­ni­ties soon to be evict­ed. The demo in Hack­ney calls into ques­tion the exces­sive social, eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal costs of the Olympics as a cat­a­lyst for (de)regeneration.

For a leaflet/flyer for this event, click onto the Lifeis­Land web­site:
http://www.lifeisland.org/

“Devel­op­ment” — at what cost?
Their con­sul­ta­tion = we know best

Plan­ning per­mis­sion for the Manor Gar­dens Allot­ments tem­po­rary relo­ca­tion site at Marsh Lane Fields in Waltham For­est was grant­ed on Tues­day June 12th 07. The Lon­don Devel­op­ment Agen­cy’s plan has always been to remove them to make way for a foot­path to the sta­dia need­ed for the four weeks of the Olympics.

Manor Gar­dens, bequeathed to be allot­ments ‘in per­pe­tu­ity’ by their orig­i­nal own­er the ‘Right Hon’ Major Vil­liers, sit in the North cen­tral sec­tion of the Olympic Park. The site has been ear­marked to be vacat­ed on Sun­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber.

How­ev­er, allot­ment hold­ers aren’t going out with a whim­per. Tomor­row, they are going to hold a march and ral­ly on Allot­ment Demo­li­tion Day. Allot­ment hold­ers, sup­port­ers and cam­paign­ers will be meet­ing at 2pm out­side Hack­ney Town Hall, march­ing to Hack­ney Wick Com­mu­ni­ty Asso­ci­a­tion Baths, 80 East­way, E9.