Category: Unnecessary Developments

THE BATH BOMB

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #28
free/donation
Mar ’10

“The only local paper that does­n’t want your kid­neys”

Gov­ern­ment Cuts Take The PCS!

The first blow has been land­ed in what promis­es to be a sum­mer of dis­con­tent, the like of which has not been seen for decades. First, B&NES Coun­cil were forced to admit their plans for coun­cil jobs, start­ing at just shy of 100. And now, the PCS, a union for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers, held two days of strike action on the 7th and 8th of March involv­ing up to 300,000 work­ers at job cen­tres, MoD, life­guard facil­i­ties and courts, with near­ly 300 out at Ensleigh (rough­ly 90% of staff there). The strike, the first in what the PCS have said will be a series of action lead­ing up to the elec­tions, is protest­ing the shav­ing of over £500 mil­lion from civ­il ser­vice redun­dan­cy schemes. As per usu­al, our Labour gov­ern­ment has spo­ken out against the strikes, brand­ing them ‘upset­ting’ (boo hoo) and point­ing out that pub­lic ser­vice redun­dan­cy pack­ages are more gen­er­ous than pri­vate ones. This is hard­ly sur­pris­ing con­sid­er­ing the infa­mous lack of moral and social account­abil­i­ty found in the prof­it-dri­ven high­er ech­e­lons of the pri­vate sec­tor, and the fact that the gov­ern­ment is try­ing to drag the pay and con­di­tions of its work­ers down to pri­vate lev­els is a dis­grace. The gov­ern­ment has also refused to inter­vene and cap the mul­ti-mil­lion pound bonus­es of top bankers, cit­ing ‘con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions’. But the Tories would­n’t do much bet­ter, promis­ing pub­lic sec­tor pay freezes for two years, as well as a raft of oth­er anti-work­er poli­cies designed to keep the boss­es rich at our expense. Who­ev­er wins the next elec­tion, we are all going to be hit hard with aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures such as these, and pen­sion reduc­tions the like of which we have not seen for a long time. Unions such as the PCS and the posties’ CWU have been lead­ing the fight­back, and with more strikes and indus­tri­al actions look­ing cer­tain, it’s about time we band­ed togeth­er to fight back against the pro-rich, anti-work­er poli­cies of all three main par­ties (oh, and the BNP — spit!).

Look What The Cat Dragged In

Maybe tomor­row they might just set­tle down… but for Bath’s only autonomous occu­pied social cen­tre, the Black Cat, it’s been a frisky cou­ple of weeks. In their fourth pad this year, they’re cur­rent­ly curled up at the 19th Cen­tu­ry ‘Newark Works’ build­ing — Unit 3A River­side Busi­ness Park, Low­er Bris­tol Road, Bath, BA2 3DW – you’ll recog­nise them by the curi­ous cat-flap-size bright red door oppo­site Pick­fords.

The Black Cat briefly found a warm home at the for­mer Methodist manse at 110 West Avenue, Old­field Park, where they ami­ably moved on, before a week’s hol­i­day at 63 West Avenue. Despite an enthu­si­as­tic hissy­fit of police repres­sion wel­come (with two cop­pers try­ing to force their way in, threat­en­ing to get ‘the boys’ to kick the door down, and fum­ing beat man­ag­er Adri­an “you won’t have a com­mu­ni­ty social cen­tre if I have any­thing to do about it” Seck­er angri­ly knock­ing on neigh­bours’ doors and stir­ring up trou­ble), most neigh­bours seemed hap­py enough to see the long emp­ty build­ing in use. Alas, all goods things come to an end, and in this case it took the under­hand­ed lies of hous­ing devel­op­er Johan Gulot­ti, who brought his chil­dren around, claim­ing to be buy­ing the place to move his young fam­i­ly in. By the time the Black Cat folks were tipped off that he was real­ly refit­ting the place for stu­dent accom­mo­da­tion, it was already time to go.

The cur­rent loca­tion, two years vacant, shows much promise, though the col­lec­tive is soon fac­ing court on the 17th of this month. With five floors, gig space, bar, yoga/chill-out room, film/workshop room, — and yes, even work­ing toi­lets – the Grade 2 list­ed ware­house had brief local fame as the home of the squat­ter per­for­mance col­lec­tive Letinov Steam Cir­cus (see Bath Bomb #6). For­mer­ly a record­ing stu­dio, the Coun­cil uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly dumped the rate-pay­ing com­pa­ny out on the street when entre­pre­neur Sir James Dyson hint­ed that he want­ed the old Stothert and Pitt site for a new Dyson Acad­e­my. Though the plans had fall­en through by Jan­u­ary 07, the dam­age was done. After two weeks of clean­ing, the Black Cat have now shift­ed rough­ly 50+ cubic meters of beer bot­tles and assort­ed debris – sav­ing the coun­cil over £1,000 in waste removal – but have gained a grand piano, a sec­ond piano, a mas­sage table and all man­ner of art sup­plies and toys – all open now for pub­lic use! They like­wise have sam­ba danc­ing, debt advice, yoga, sound sys­tem, meet­ing space, art work­shops and the like all lined up – see the blog for details: http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com.

Mean­while, the Tories have done their bit for the sprawl­ing moun­tain of UK emp­ty build­ings (cur­rent­ly at around 840,000), with David Cameron’s recent pro­posed offence of ‘inten­tion­al tres­pass’, crim­i­nal­is­ing squat­ters and trav­ellers alike, and side­step­ping local coun­cil oblig­a­tions to pro­vide sites for trav­ellers. But if Cameron does try to push the Black Cat out of Bath, his local Tory stooges will soon find out that kit­ty has claws!

http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/Squatters-Newark-Works/article-1862409-detail/article.htm

They Don’t Know What Is Shame

The Black Cat Cen­tre’s own slim and slimy miss-fit per­former Madame Hat­ter will on Fri­day 12th March, 7.06pm, be com­per­ing a wide open mic and bang poet­ry night of crazi­ness and won­der – the Scabrous Cabaret! We shit you not: “Should you be prud­ish pud­dings, freak frogs, veg­an vul­tures, break­fast brutes and funky fruits, bang poets or junk poets or even plain poets, stu­dious stu­dents and naughty rodents, mer­ry-go-round trav­ellers or mag­ic round­about surfers and hula-hoop singers, squat­ter­pil­lars or passers-by, the usu­al crows and so many more if you’re hun­gry for the encore, you are all invit­ed to the first edi­tion of a night of sweet delir­i­um open to all sorts of per­form­ers, musi­cians, artists, poets, sto­ry-tellers…” Appar­ent­ly the sin­is­ter lit­tle made­moi­selle is a plumber of deca­dence in res­i­dence, but we hon­est­ly have no idea what she’s on about – why not come along to find out!

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

Allot More Space To Grow

Bath suf­fers from a lack of space for grow­ing food. The offi­cial fig­ures for allot­ment wait­ing times vary from one year to three, but the fig­ure is real­is­ti­cal­ly more like five. A gar­den-share project already exists in Bath Area Gar­den Share (BAGS), giv­ing some of those on the wait­ing list short-term solu­tions to their gar­den­ing dilem­ma. Yet, now, a new project called Old­field Park Grow­ing Togeth­er has emerged which, if it proves fea­si­ble, could pro­vide even more space.

The Prob­lem: Old­field Park is an area where most stu­dents from the two uni­ver­si­ties choose to live and is also an area with a fair amount of gar­den space. How­ev­er, as stu­dents very rarely stay longer than a cou­ple of years and are more often than not rent­ing the premis­es, the gar­den­ing poten­tial goes to waste. On top of this, the ten­sions between long-term res­i­dents and stu­dents have inten­si­fied recent­ly and one of the com­plaints which has come to B&NES Council’s atten­tion is the untidi­ness of gar­dens.

The Solu­tion: Although only cur­rent­ly in its research stage, the project (which is man­aged by four Bath Uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents and fund­ed by a vol­un­teer­ing char­i­ty Vin­spired) aims to cre­ate a sense of com­mu­ni­ty at the same time as pro­mot­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty and pos­i­tive use of land, by allow­ing com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to put stu­dent gar­dens to per­ma­nent good use. If we find that it could work, pilots for the project should be up and run­ning with­in a month and the project could be in full swing lat­er in the year.

The research is exten­sive – we are inter­view­ing peo­ple to include in case stud­ies, col­lat­ing ques­tion­naire results and attend­ing com­mu­ni­ty group meet­ings – and the more opin­ion we get on the project the more com­pre­hen­sive our find­ings will be. So if you can fill out a ques­tion­naire, they are in the Velo Lounge and should take 5–10 min­utes, please do. If you want to find out more, are inter­est­ed in get­ting involved or need more space for grow­ing e‑mail us on op.growers[at]googlemail.com.

Lit­ter-ally Speak­ing

On Sun­day the 28th of Feb, the Old­field Park com­mu­ni­ty, includ­ing mem­bers of Bath Activist Net­work and the Black Cat Cen­tre, came togeth­er to sort out and clean up Bath’s straight­est green area, Lin­ear Park. Tired of find­ing the park cov­ered with rub­bish, around 40 mem­bers of the local com­mu­ni­ty descend­ed on the area with bin bags and lit­ter pick­ers, turn­ing the area from a depress­ing rub­bish dump into a sparkling park again! When inter­viewed about the lit­ter pick, one vol­un­teer, Rachel, had this to say: “Obvi­ous­ly, we think the coun­cil clean­ers do a great job under tough con­di­tions, and we would nev­er dream of crit­i­ciz­ing their great work, but the vol­ume of lit­ter in this area deserves a com­mu­ni­ty response”. Anoth­er lit­ter pick­er, Steve from Old­field Park, said “If the com­mu­ni­ty can come togeth­er over some­thing like this, imag­ine what else we can do? Com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens, com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres, street par­ties – when the com­mu­ni­ty comes togeth­er, you realise that we can do almost any­thing”. The lit­ter pick was a real­ly good day out, with great com­pa­ny, and shows what we can achieve when we act togeth­er as a com­mu­ni­ty, rather than wait­ing for the author­i­ties to do a bad job of it for us. There is anoth­er lit­ter pick planned for a cou­ple of months’ time (date tba), so we’ll keep you post­ed.

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

Greece Light­ning

As the politi­cians tell us that the reces­sion is over, a quick glance across Europe tells a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. Greece is once again on fire, with dai­ly protests involv­ing tens of thou­sands of work­ers and stu­dents. Why? The Greek econ­o­my is fail­ing, and des­per­ate to keep a fel­low nation state afloat, a coali­tion of coun­tries led by Ger­many are lead­ing the way to Greece’s eco­nom­ic revival. In real­i­ty, this has meant a mas­sive aus­ter­i­ty pro­gram, where work­ers are see­ing their wages reduced, tax­es and liv­ing costs soar­ing and rights in the streets and work­places tram­pled on. As always, the gov­ern­ment is try­ing to keep its head up at the expense of the ordi­nary peo­ple. But in Greece, the peo­ple are not tak­ing this pun­ish­ment lying down, and have been tak­ing to the streets, brick­ing up the entrances to banks and gov­ern­ment build­ings, riot­ing, cre­at­ing their own alter­na­tive polit­i­cal struc­tures. This batch of dis­obe­di­ence may not be as vio­lent as last year’s riots, but since then, the Greek peo­ple have decid­ed not to take it any­more. What is unfold­ing in Greece (woe­ful­ly under-report­ed by a cor­po­rate media ter­ri­fied that we might take inspi­ra­tion from the Greek work­ers) is a bat­tle between the gov­ern­ment and the peo­ple, and every­thing is up for grabs. If the gov­ern­ment wins, it will give a green light to oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries to push through sim­i­lar unfair mea­sures to tax the peo­ple to save a crooked and fail­ing finan­cial sys­tem. But if the peo­ple win, it could pro­vide an inspi­ra­tion for mil­lions of oth­er ordi­nary peo­ple across the world who are sick of hav­ing their liv­ing con­di­tions tram­pled to pre­serve the lux­u­ry of the few.

A Load Of Hot Air

A duo of waf­fling coun­cil meet­ings in the area have recent­ly come to pass, with the deci­sions over the expan­sion of Bris­tol Inter­na­tion­al Air­port and the appli­ca­tion for a bio­fu­els plant at Avon­mouth. The meet­ing of the South Area Com­mit­tee was held at the Town Hall, West­on-super-Mare on Wednes­day March 3rd, who most­ly ate out of the air­port’s hands, but spine­less­ly passed on the deci­sion to a lat­er Plan­ning and Reg­u­la­to­ry com­mit­tee, prob­a­bly in April. In their efforts to fur­ther cham­pi­on trans­paren­cy and democ­ra­cy, they removed the rail from the bal­cony just before the meet­ing to shut out sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic access on health and safe­ty grounds. Envi­ron­men­tal­ist and neigh­bour­ing cam­paign­ers want to cap the air­port’s expan­sions entire­ly, but also cam­paign for con­di­tions to be enforced on any devel­op­ments, such as a lim­it of 8 mil­lion pas­sen­gers in any 12 months (they only had 5.6 mil­lion in 2009), sav­ing the green­belt from carparks, a con­trol on the num­ber of overnight flights and demand­ing improve­ments in traf­fic and CO2 emis­sions.

Bris­tol Coun­cil demon­strat­ed a sur­pris­ing and land­mark quan­ti­ty of cojones though, when they went against their own plan­ners and legal offi­cer to reject W4B Bris­tol’s pro­posed ‘green’ bio­fu­els plant at Avon­mouth. Instead they took the side of pro­test­ers out­side, in sup­port of com­mu­ni­ties in Indone­sia, from whom the raw mate­ri­als would be tak­en. W4B Chair­man Chris Slack was even described by one coun­cil­lor as a “ruth­less prof­i­teer… mas­querad­ing” behind green­wash buzz­words. Coun­cils that lis­ten? We’ve heard it all.

In oth­er eco news, cam­paign­ers from Ris­ing Tide are also join­ing a mam­moth bike ride event, from Merthyr Tyd­fil in Wales (site of Ffos y Fran, a much-hat­ed open cast coal min­ing oper­a­tion strong­ly opposed by locals) to Ross­port on the West coast of Ire­land, where Shell are try­ing to build an envi­ron­men­tal­ly-destruc­tive marine gas pipeline and brib­ing the local cops to har­rass and imprison landown­ers and objec­tors. The ride leaves on the 22nd of May – con­tact bristol[at]risingtide.org.uk for details. For a much more sedate cycle, don’t for­get the Bath Crit­i­cal Mass on the 27th of this month. For those who like to get their hands dirty, this clash­es nice­ly with two tree plant­i­ng days – one at Old­field Park Sta­tion that day, 12.15–2.15pm, where 100 native mixed shrubs and trees are due for expan­sion of wood­land cor­ri­dors, and the oth­er on Sat­ur­day the 20th, 10am-12, at West­on Park for 200 trees; vol­un­teers with tools and safe­ty boots are need­ed for both. This also clash­es with our last shout out – the West­side cli­mate action gath­er­ing on the 20th March at the Black Cat Cen­tre. Choose wise­ly!

http://www.stopbia.com
http://www.n‑somerset.gov.uk/Environment/News/news-20100224-airportplansrecommendedforapproval.htm
http://www.bristol247.com/2010/02/24/biofuel-plant-rejected-in-landmark-planning-decision
http://www.stopffosyfran.co.uk
http://www.shelltosea.com

EVENTS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exhi­bi­tion: ‘Loss of Inno­cence: Gaza Chil­dren’s Art­work’, ends Wednes­day 17th March, most­ly 10–4pm, St John’ Church, Frome, ffi e‑mail adam.stout[at]virgin.net

‘Madame Hat­ter’s Scabrous Cabaret’ open mic night, Fri­day 12th March, 7.06pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Bris­tol Con­ven­tion of the Left: dis­cus­sion and work­shops, Sat­ur­day 13th March, 10–5pm, Eas­t­on Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Kil­burn Street, Eas­t­on, Bris­tol, http://www.eastoncommunitycentre.org.uk/p_Contact_Us.ikml

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

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

‘Resole Your Sat­ur­days’ Spring Walk, Sat­ur­day 13th March, start­ing by train from Maid­en­head, ring Jane at 01225 423832 FFI

Course: ‘Intro­duc­tion to Veg­etable Gar­den­ing’ part 1, Sat­ur­day 13th March, 7–9pm, see http://www.eco-logicbooks.com FFI

Pow­er 2010 street stall, Mon­day 15th March, 12 mid­day, South­gate Street

Film pre­miere and pan­el dis­cus­sion: ‘Dirty Oil’, Mon­day 15th March, Lit­tle The­atre, ring 08717 042061 for start time

Bath Cycling Cam­paign meet­ing, Mon­day 15th March, 7.30pm, the New Inn, Mon­mouth Place, http://www.bathcyclingcampaign.org.uk

Bris­tol & Bath Ris­ing Tide meet­ing, Mon­day 15th March, 7.30pm, Kebele Com­mu­ni­ty Co-op, 14 Robert­son Road, Eas­t­on, Bris­tol

Video sem­i­nar: ‘The Crash Course (part 3)’, Tues­day 16th March, 7.15pm, Min­er­va Cen­tre, 8 Combe Park, entry by dona­tion, see http://www.chrismartenson.com for first 2 free episodes

Dis­cus­sion: ‘Com­mu­ni­ty Owned Renew­able Ener­gy: A Self Suf­fi­cient Bath­ford’, Tues­day 16th March, 8pm, Bath­ford Pri­ma­ry School, e‑mail jamiecolston[at]gmail.com/ tel 01225 851377 FFI

Rad­i­cal debate club: ‘When envi­ron­men­tal­ism becomes fas­cism’, Thurs­day 18th March, 7–9pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Bath Friends of the Earth AGM, Thurs­day 18th March, 8pm, The Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street

Bath tree-plant­i­ng project day, Sat­ur­day 20th March, 10am-12, West­on Park, bring safe­ty boots and tools

Kebele Cafe: food and talk on links between cli­mate change, coal indus­try and Columbian trade union­ist action, by Bris­tol & Bath Ris­ing Tide, Sun­day 21st March, 6pm, Kebele Com­mu­ni­ty Co-op, 14 Robert­son Road, Eas­t­on, Bris­tol

Talk: ‘Why Trams?’, Wednes­day 24th March, 7.30pm, Grove Street Unit­ed Reform Church Halls, £3 with tea and cake!

Film: ‘Born on the 4th of July’, Thurs­day 25th March, 7pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

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

Bath tree-plant­i­ng project day, Sat­ur­day 27th March, 12.15–2.15pm, Old­field Park train sta­tion, bring safe­ty boots and tools

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

Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs street col­lec­tion, Sat­ur­day 27th March, Bath cen­tre, 1–5pm

Bath Social­ist Forum, Mon­day 29th March, 8pm, upstairs at St James Wine Vaults

Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, Thurs­day 1st April, 7.30–9pm, down­stairs at The Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade, http://www.bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com

‘Fort­night of Shame’: two weeks of action against BP’s invest­ment in tar sands extrac­tion, 1st-15th April, con­tact bristol[at]risingtide.org.uk FFI

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

Bath FreeShop, Sat­ur­day 10th April, 12–3pm, out­side Pump Rooms, Stall Street

Horse Rac­ing Aware­ness week demo, Fri­day 9th April, West­gate Street, con­tact bathanimalaction[at]yahoo.co.uk FFI

Broad­lands Orchard­share Vol­un­teer­ing Day, Sat­ur­day 10th April, 12–4pm, Broad­lands Orchard, Box Road, Bath­ford, http://www.bathford.net/broadlands.php

‘Defend our Pub­lic Ser­vices’ march and ral­ly, Sat­ur­day 10th April, Lon­don, tick­ets for coach avail­able

Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing, Mon­day 12th April, 8–9pm, The Bell, Wal­cot Street

Bath Green Drinks, Wednes­day 14th April, 8.30pm, the Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street

Update and dis­cus­sion on the plan­ning process, Sun­day 18th April, 11–3.30pm, £5 ada­vanced
book­ing essen­tial by 5th April, e‑mail afrelmi­ra at]googlemail.com

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

Intro­duc­to­ry Per­ma­cul­ture Week­end, Sat­ur­day 8th to Sun­day 9th May, £50, for book­ings e‑mail afrelmira[at]googlemail.com

‘Adapt­ing to Cli­mate Change’ week, 7th-11th June, see http://www.oursouthwest.com/climate/
FFI

Mean­while In Bris­tol…

Liti­gious tax-dodg­ing ultra-cap­i­tal­ist bas­tards Tesco have recent­ly announced plans to open a new store in Stoke’s Croft, Bris­tol. In scenes rem­i­nis­cent of last year’s open­ing of a sim­i­lar store on Bath­wick Hill in our own fair town, the com­mu­ni­ty has come togeth­er in protest at the plans. Local res­i­dents, busi­ness­es and char­i­ties attend­ed a packed-out com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing to organ­ise resis­tance to the plans. Inspired by the recent suc­cess­es of oth­er sim­i­lar cam­paigns, things got quick­ly under­way. A peti­tion was organ­ised; an inde­pen­dent con­sul­ta­tion of the local res­i­dents was begun; anoth­er group began to inves­ti­gate the coun­cil’s own woe­ful­ly inad­e­quate con­sul­ta­tion (55 address­es were con­sult­ed – many of which were found to be clear­ly unoc­cu­pied); and, of course, direct actions were quick­ly organ­ised.

With­in days, a diverse group of locals had squat­ted the pro­posed site to pre­vent work from start­ing. Tesco’s response was equal­ly quick and typ­i­cal­ly pre­dictable – they sent round a cou­ple of thugs with sledge­ham­mers to break down the doors. For­tu­nate­ly, passers-by came to the squat­ters’ aid and the police were even­tu­al­ly forced to inter­vene. Tesco’s heav­ies, despite hav­ing open­ly vio­lat­ed Sec­tion 6 of the Hous­ing Act and thus earned a poten­tial 6 months’ prison apiece, were of course allowed to leave unhin­dered. In response, a Tesco on Church Road in Red­field lost its win­dows on Tues­day the 9th.

Evic­tion now looms for the squat­ters, who have already resist­ed the first attempt – cur­rent­ly enjoy­ing a tent and tri­pod shan­ty town atop the roof — but in the mean­time the space is being used for a vari­ety of com­mu­ni­ty events. If you’re in the area, pop down to 140 Chel­tenham Road and offer your encour­age­ment – and, if the mood takes you, ask how you can help when the big day comes.

Brave Land Of Lib­er­ty

Here at Bath Bomb Tow­ers, we some­times wor­ry that we don’t devote enough col­umn inch­es to the pos­i­tive side of life in Bath. So we’d like to take some time this issue to cel­e­brate the many free­doms we all enjoy.

The most impor­tant free­dom of all is of course the free­dom to feel safe, secure, and ade­quate­ly pro­tect­ed. So we were over­joyed recent­ly with reports of the police clamp­ing down hard on a sus­pi­cious-seem­ing man engaged in the high­ly threat­en­ing activ­i­ty of pho­tograph­ing the new South­gate shop­ping cen­tre. He might have been just an inno­cent tourist, fooled by the mock-Geor­gian archi­tec­ture into think­ing he was in the mid­dle of some sort of World Her­itage site. Or maybe an avid read­er of the Chron­i­cle, plan­ning yet anoth­er scathing let­ter about the lack of Bath stone in our lat­est tem­ple to con­sumerism. But, ter­ri­fy­ing­ly, the was a chance – how­ev­er slim – that he might have been – cov­er your chil­dren’s eyes – FOREIGN. After all, he was kin­da… brown…

There is a hap­py end­ing, though, as offi­cers not only iden­ti­fied the man, pre­sum­ably using a com­bi­na­tion of blan­ket CCTV cov­er­age and the tech­no­log­i­cal mar­vels of the data­base state – they also rang him up, threat­ened to come round his house, and heav­i­ly implied that if any­thing – ANYTHING – hap­pens at the South­gate, well… they know where he lives…

We’re sure he won’t make that mis­take again. The law-abid­ing cit­i­zens of Bath can rest easy in their beds tonight.

Got Me Hang­ing On The Tele­phone

In reces­sion-swept Britain, dodgy loan com­pa­nies, bailiffs and oth­er scum are find­ing more and more inven­tive ways to sep­a­rate us from our hard-earned green. A mas­sive increase in one of their favourite tricks to bleed us for what­ev­er we have comes in the form of threat­en­ing tele­phone calls. Dur­ing the course of these calls, the caller will try to con­vince the debtor to set up unre­al­is­tic repay­ment schemes, far above what the debtor can afford, often using the threat of home repos­ses­sion, court pro­ceed­ings or bailiff action. While this may sound scary, the impor­tant things is to NEVER agree to a repay­ment pack­age over the phone. The rea­son that they are ring­ing you in such an aggres­sive way is that they know you hold all the cards. In real­i­ty, most debts and loans that you can­not pay, the law will not make you pay, or allow you to repay in min­i­mal amounts. Know­ing that you have the legal right not to pay back the debt imme­di­ate­ly, or at all, the com­pa­ny will try to scare you with a phone call, threat­en you with made-up threats of bailiffs and try and pres­sure you into a repay­ment. So, before agree­ing to repay any of your debts over the phone, pop down to the Cit­i­zens Advice Bureau, or the debt advice drop-in (Tues­days, 4–7pm) at the Black Cat Cen­tre, because nine out of ten times, the bailiffs will be bluff­ing, and you will have the pow­er to set up a repay­ment scheme that suits you. The best advice if you are rung or vis­it­ed by a bailiff is to refuse to talk to them, and speak only to their head office after receiv­ing advice from debt groups.

In For A Pony, Out For A Hound

Most of our read­ers will be aware that hunt­ing with hounds was made ille­gal in 2005, although the effect this has had on the amount of hunt­ing in the UK is of course neg­li­gi­ble. Some peo­ple, how­ev­er, may have missed this impor­tant event. These peo­ple include, but are not lim­it­ed to; her­mits; the chron­i­cal­ly news-averse; and the police.

Whilst out mon­i­tor­ing an ille­gal hare and fox hunt last month, hunt sabo­teurs from Bath nar­row­ly avoid­ed a horse charge and then the grub­by hands of local cops. Quick­ly ascer­tain­ing that they weren’t after their eye-wit­ness reports of ille­gal hunt­ing, so much as they were look­ing after the land­ed gen­try’s hob­bies, the sabs escaped through a near­by wood and helped the hunt pack up dis­ap­point­ed and ear­ly. And on Sat­ur­day the 6th of this month, 21 sabs from Bath, Bris­tol, South Wales, Pewsey, Read­ing and Southamp­ton con­verged on the joint meet of the Ted­worth and Llan Geinor Hunts. It was a bright, sun­ny, ener­getic day out for all con­cerned, which saw both hunts con­tin­u­ous­ly out­foxed by a trio of sabo­teur teams run­ning them to ground at all times. There was a smat­ter­ing of wast­ing of police time from the hunts, as well as a smashed cam­era and minor pushey-shovey near the end when the sabs brought the hounds out of cry at the last minute, but the hunts went away with noth­ing, and at least two fox­es sur­vived anoth­er day.

The sea­son’s draw­ing to an end now, so to get involved, con­tact bathhuntsabs[at]yahoo.co.uk quick­ly, or you’ll have to wait until Autumn…

Doing It Our­selves

The Black Cat Cen­tre has now a venue big enough to hold gigs, but also big enough to have all kinds of work­shops. At the heart of all com­mu­ni­ty-spir­it­ed ven­tures lies a wish for more self-suf­fi­cien­cy, auton­o­my and free­dom. In the way of such ideals stand the twin poli­cies of manda­to­ry edu­ca­tion (instill­ing uncer­tain­ty and sub­mis­sion in the mass­es) and planned obso­les­cence (the cre­ation of com­modi­ties with a very lim­it­ed shelf-life, cou­pled with replace­ment parts made more expen­sive than the prod­uct itself, due to fake intel­lec­tu­al ‘prop­er­ty’ rights).

The result is, when you’re faced with a defec­tive appli­ance, you do not repair it prompt­ly – nay, you could­n’t; instead, you throw it away and go get a new one. Gee, cap­i­tal­ists have it all marked out for them, eh?

But this need not be. In every com­mu­ni­ty, there is a trea­sure of unused skills, knowl­edge, and resources; the build­ing cur­rent­ly owned by the Black Cat is only one instance of a gen­er­al prin­ci­ple that could make life eas­i­er for a lot of peo­ple. The com­mu­ni­ty work­shop could be the place to pool our tools and skills togeth­er, so as to take con­fi­dence, and relieve our­selves from the pres­sure to buy new things, when we could repair them our­selves at a much low­er cost. Please think about the things you know, the tools you have, the appli­ances that gath­er dust, and all the things we can do about that, togeth­er. Get in touch (bathsocialcentre[at]googlemail.com) to help us start a valu­able skill­share that could save you time and mon­ey, and bring our com­mu­ni­ty togeth­er.

Book Review: Live Work­ing Or Die Fight­ing

Too few of us know about our col­lec­tive his­to­ry, and how our ances­tors won hard-fought bat­tles for rights that we take for grant­ed, such as the right to strike, hol­i­day pay and the 8‑hour work­ing day. What few­er of us choose to think about is those work­ers who are still strug­gling for those basic rights today, both in Britain and abroad. In ‘Live work­ing or die fight­ing’ Paul Mason tells these sto­ries in a fast-paced and excit­ing way, deliv­er­ing his­to­ry and mod­ern-day events through the eyes of the peo­ple who expe­ri­ence them. Mason com­pares the strug­gles of today’s immi­grant clean­ers with the fight to unionise and for fair con­di­tions fought by British work­ers near­ly 200 years ago.

The nar­ra­tive takes you through the dra­mat­ic riots and social exper­i­ments of the Paris Com­mune, drags us into the des­per­ate resis­tance fought tooth and nail by Pol­ish com­mu­nists, anar­chists and Jews against the Nazis, shows us the mines and rail­roads of 1920’s Amer­i­ca where dyna­mite-throw­ing trade union­ists bat­tled gov­ern­ment troops over pay and con­di­tions, and takes us through the fac­to­ries of indus­tri­al Chi­na, where anar­chist and syn­di­cal­ist rad­i­cals inspired a huge­ly oppressed group of women and child work­ers to take the pow­er back.

Mason gives us a taste of the new worlds cre­at­ed by these work­ers, then jux­ta­pos­es it with the still un-won fights tak­ing place across the world today. ‘Live work­ing or die fight­ing’ makes a vivid read, show­ing what we can achieve when we act togeth­er, but does­n’t shy away from high­light­ing mis­takes we have made in the past – espe­cial­ly detail­ing how we have been sold out by the ‘lead­ers’ of polit­i­cal par­ties and unions. Mason uses his­to­ry to make the case for a strong lead­er­less work­ing class tak­ing the pow­er away from boss­es and left­wing par­ty bureau­crats and mak­ing their own way. Mason’s ide­al­ism com­bined with his­tor­i­cal case stud­ies leave the read­er feel­ing that a new world real­ly is pos­si­ble.

If you have ever won­dered how we have the lim­it­ed rights of the mod­ern day work­place, won­dered how the new under­class strug­gle for rights, or just want to get stuck into one of the most inter­est­ing­ly-writ­ten his­to­ry books you will ever read, check out ‘live work­ing or die fight­ing’.

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

Putting The ‘Fad’ Into ‘Intifa­da’

We received an anony­mous press release this month by a group call­ing them­selves ‘Glob­al Intifa­da’:

“Bath’s arms deal­ers and war prof­i­teers like to hide behind veneers of respectabil­i­ty and legit­i­ma­cy. One such group is British Mar­itime Tech­nol­o­gy Defence Ser­vices, who help design the engines for Britain’s ‘Tri­dent’ nuclear-armed sub­marines, and who sup­ply vital soft­ware to the Israeli mil­i­tary.

In sol­i­dar­i­ty with all the peo­ple liv­ing under the repres­sive occu­pa­tion of the Israeli state, with all the char­i­ty and human­i­tar­i­an work­ers mur­dered by that state’s mil­i­tary, and espe­cial­ly with the res­i­dents of Sheikh Jar­rah, an Arab neigh­bour­hood in Jerusalem which has come in for par­tic­u­lar­ly strong oppres­sion recent­ly, we have cho­sen to expose BMT for the crooks they are. A large ban­ner, bear­ing the leg­end “BMT are War Crim­i­nals” has been hung by their main offices. Now the peo­ple of Bath can be made of the atroc­i­ties being made pos­si­ble right beneath their noses.”