Category: North West England

North West Eng­land

anti- Fracking protesters shut down the country’s only hydrolic fracturing rig — again!

1.12.11

1.12.11

Activists set­tle in for long-term occu­pa­tion of tox­ic new indus­try which threat­ens the West Coun­try

The con­tro­ver­sial pro­posed Frack­ing site in Hes­keth Bank, Lan­cashire was shut down this morn­ing as 8 Bris­tol cyclists stormed the drilling rig. Three of the cli­mate jus­tice cam­paign­ers from Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide scaled the Cuadrilla Resources equip­ment with sup­plies and have declared their inten­tion to stop work for sev­er­al days.

The drilling rig is the only oper­a­tion of it’s kind work­ing in the coun­try, after a sim­i­lar explorato­ry site in Black­pool was shut down in the spring because it induced two earth­quakes in the area. [1]

Liz Sparks, a spokesper­son for Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide, explained the poten­tial dan­gers of frack­ing in the South West:

“Large parts of Wales, Devon, Som­er­set and Dor­est are poten­tial­ly under threat from this des­per­ate new tech­nol­o­gy, which involves extract­ing the gas in shale rock through Hydraulic Frac­tur­ing, (or frack­ing) [2]. Huge amounts of water mixed with tox­ic chem­i­cals are forced into the ground at high pres­sure, a large pro­por­tion of which are nev­er recov­ered. This flu­id also leach­es arsenic out of rocks, cre­at­ing a dan­ger­ous cock­tail that’s dif­fi­cult to dis­pose of. In the Unit­ed states numer­ous spills of these flu­ids have con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed irri­ga­tion water, effect­ing food sup­plies, and the health of sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties.” [3]

The same site was occu­pied last month by anoth­er group- “Frack Off”, and local com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance across the coun­try is gain­ing ground. [4]

Paul Williams, who works in a Bris­tol Library, was among the pro­tes­tors. He com­ment­ed:

“Peo­ple sim­ply aren’t going to stand by and let this crazy extreme sneak into our land­scape. We’ve been inspired by the remark­able work of our neigh­bours in Wales. Glam­or­gan coun­ty coun­cil recent­ly vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly against an appli­ca­tion to Frack the area.[5] This deci­sion was influ­enced by Welsh Water’s sub­mis­sion that reserve ground­wa­ter sites are at risk of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. We can stop this before it starts if we act now. If you want earth­quakes, run­away cli­mate change, con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed water, and a threat to agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion then Frack­ing’s the way for­ward. If you want ener­gy secu­ri­ty and more jobs per kilo­watt hour, go with renew­ables [6]. It’s a no brain­er.”

The indus­try is quick to point to the US expe­ri­ence of frack­ing, but their safe­ty record there is on increas­ing­ly shaky ground. New York State has just insti­tut­ed a mora­to­ri­um against frack­ing, as has Que­bec, Cana­da. France has banned it out­right, as has New Jer­sey in the US. [7]

Twit­ter: Fol­low the action on twit­ter: https://twitter.com/#!/BrisRisingTide (Bris­Ris­ingTide)

Pho­tos and videos updat­ed in real-time on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/71113300@N08/ (Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide)

For more info see: www.frack-off.org
And www.risingtide.org.uk/bristol

Earth First! Winter Moot 2012 — 24–26th February 2012. Updated: location & what to expect

A week­end of dis­cus­sion and net­work­ing for those tak­ing direct action against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion. 

Please note date & loca­tion change (due to date clash & venue prob­lems):

24–26th Feb­ru­ary 2012, near Glas­gow

Near­est train sta­tion: Lanark.

A week­end of dis­cus­sion and net­work­ing for those tak­ing direct action against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion. 

Please note date & loca­tion change (due to date clash & venue prob­lems):

24–26th Feb­ru­ary 2012, near Glas­gow

Near­est train sta­tion: Lanark.

See earthfirstgathering.org.uk for fur­ther infor­ma­tion about loca­tion,  pro­gramme and con­tact details

Update:

Where — this years Earth First Win­ter Moot will take place in Gle­spin Vil­lage Hall, South Lanark­shire. Gle­spin is a small vil­lage about 14 miles south of Lanark, and 35 miles south of Glas­gow. South Lanark­shire also has many beau­ti­ful areas with rivers, hills, forests and peat bogs.  Full direc­tions

What to expect — this years Earth First! Win­ter Moot takes place in South Lanark­shire, Scot­land. In a months time envi­ron­men­tal­ists from across the UK and beyond will con­verge to dis­cuss and debate. Below is an update from the organ­is­ing col­lec­tive who are work­ing on the pro­gram.

The Moot 2012 col­lec­tive has felt that at pre­vi­ous EF! Gath­er­ings groups have pri­mar­i­ly attend­ed to recruit for their respec­tive cam­paigns. Yet those who attend EF! Gath­er­ings are pre­dom­i­nant­ly already active, mak­ing them good places for net­work­ing, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly for out­right recruit­ment. We recog­nise the effort gath­er­ing organ­is­ers put into plan­ning agen­das but often the more dis­cur­sive aspects of the gath­er­ings focus on larg­er,  abstract ques­tions and debates have often been framed by self-appoint­ed experts. We feel that these dis­cus­sions inef­fec­tive­ly attempt to find answers or reach con­sen­sus where this is inap­pro­pri­ate.

For exam­ple at the first EF! Gath­er­ing 20 years ago the ques­tion was asked: ‘What is EF!?’ 20 years lat­er in 2011 at the last Moot the same ques­tion was still being asked …

The answer is EF! is what we make it, and this year we are going to make it a space in which we can approach our cam­paigns both crit­i­cal­ly and ana­lyt­i­cal­ly by ask­ing more spe­cif­ic and prac­ti­cal ques­tions. Our activism should be con­stant­ly evolv­ing not stuck in a rut ask­ing the same ques­tions again and again.

The agen­da will be designed to ask ques­tions around four key issues: the tac­tics we use; the strate­gies that we employ in our cam­paigns; com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty; and sus­tain­able activism. There will be no attempt to reach con­clu­sions or con­sen­sus espe­cial­ly about what EF! is. Instead we want to have dis­cus­sions that lead to new ideas that could evolve ongo­ing cam­paigns or give cre­ative inspi­ra­tion to ones that are just get­ting start­ed.

A free space will be pro­vid­ed in which cam­paigns will be able to hold meet­ings and have fur­ther dis­cus­sions if they wish, and there will also be some space giv­en for cam­paign updates with an empha­sis on hon­est analy­sis rather than pro­mo­tion.

For updates and more info check the web­site or email us.

efwintermoot@noflag.org.uk

Natural Gas Drilling Rig Stormed by Anti-Fracking Protesters

2.11.11

2.11.11

This morn­ing nine peo­ple, from the nation­al anti- frack­ing net­work from Frack Off, have halt­ed work at Cuadrilla Resources drilling site in Hes­keth Bank, Lan­cashire. They ran on to the Frack­ing site ear­ly this morn­ing and scaled the drilling rig using climb­ing equip­ment. They aim to sit on top of the drilling rig for as long as pos­si­ble to stop the drilling.

The action is aimed at high­light­ing the hypocrisy behind the ‘Shale Gas Envi­ron­men­tal Sum­mit’ start­ing today in Lon­don: a con­fer­ence spon­sored by a host of com­pa­nies involved in the oil and gas indus­try who are try­ing to spin the rapid expan­sion into the untapped fos­sil fuel as ‘green’ [1].

Cam­paign­ers are act­ing in sup­port of the ‘Frack Mob’ mass action hap­pen­ing out­side the sum­mit at 3pm lat­er today [2].

Both actions aim to counter the PR offen­sive of the shale gas indus­try and bring pub­lic atten­tion to the harm frack­ing has been linked to.

Hydraulic Frac­tur­ing, or ‘frack­ing’ is a con­tro­ver­sial method of nat­ur­al gas extrac­tion, in which a mix­ture of water, sand and chem­i­cals is inject­ed into the ground at high pres­sure, crack­ing shale rock and releas­ing the gas [3]. It has been the sub­ject of much con­tention due to numer­ous reports link­ing the method to water con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, health prob­lems and earth­quakes [4]. The indus­try is in its infan­cy in the UK, and there are plans for up to 800 wells in Lan­cashire alone [5].

Jen­ny Boykin, a spokesper­son for Frack Off, said “Frack­ing uses huge amounts of water mixed with tox­ic chem­i­cals, a large frac­tion of which are nev­er recov­ered. The frack­ing flu­id also leach­es chem­i­cals like arsenic out of the rocks when it is used mak­ing it even more tox­ic and so the flu­id that is recov­ered becomes a big dis­pos­al prob­lem. The con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of irri­ga­tion water means that everyone’s food sup­plies could poten­tial­ly be affect­ed. Frack­ing in the Unit­ed States has already result­ed in numer­ous spills of these flu­ids.”

Col­in East­man, one of the climbers, said, “Con­ven­tion­al fos­sil fuels have begun to run out and the sys­tem is mov­ing towards more extreme forms of ener­gy like frack­ing, tar sands, and deep water drilling. The move towards ‘extreme ener­gy’ is lit­er­al­ly scrap­ping the bot­tom of the bar­rel, suck­ing the last most dif­fi­cult to reach fos­sil fuels from the plan­et at a time when we should be rapid­ly reduc­ing our con­sump­tion alto­geth­er and look­ing for sus­tain­able alter­na­tives. In the UK frack­ing for shale gas is planned along­side, not instead of, extrac­tion of con­ven­tion­al fos­sil fuels like coal.”

Pic­tures are being uploaded here:  http://s.coop/7hwi

Look at the web­site for more info: www.frack-off.org
Fol­low us on twit­ter: @frack_off
Fol­low us on Face­book: www.facebook.com/frackoffuk
Or e‑mail:  media@frack-off.org
Phone: 07931195505

Notes:
[1] Envi­ron­men­tal sum­mit details:  http://www.smi-online.co.uk/events/overview.asp?is=0&ref=3742

[2] press release for the frack mob:  http://frack-off.org.uk/press-release-anti-fracking-protesters-plan-to-shut-down-an-industry-environmental-summit/

[3] short film explain­ing what frack­ing is:
 http://frack-off.org.uk/fracking-hell/watch-the-film/

[4]  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2050025/Earthquakes-Lancashire-coast-WERE-caused-drilling-gas-experts-warn-energy-operation-threatened-closure.html

[5]  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/sep/21/gas-field-blackpool-dallas-sea

Ryanair ejected by Manchester students

Octo­ber 29, 2011

Ryanair had to can­cel a mar­ket­ing event at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter Stu­dents Union ear­li­er this week after stu­dents dis­man­tled their pro­mo­tion­al stall in protest against the com­pa­ny’s record on the envi­ron­ment and work­ers’ rights.

Octo­ber 29, 2011

Ryanair had to can­cel a mar­ket­ing event at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter Stu­dents Union ear­li­er this week after stu­dents dis­man­tled their pro­mo­tion­al stall in protest against the com­pa­ny’s record on the envi­ron­ment and work­ers’ rights.

Ryanair had adver­tised to hold a stall from 12pm to 3pm last Thurs­day (29th Octo­ber 2011) . How­ev­er, at 12.30pm, a group of around nine stu­dents began dis­man­tling the com­pa­ny’s ban­ners and dis­play boards and pop­ping their pro­mo­tion­al bal­loons. The Ryanair sales team soon left the build­ing.

Stu­dents said the action was in anger at Ryanair’s dis­re­gard for the dan­gers of cli­mate change by aggres­sive­ly mar­ket­ing cheap flights. They said the action was also tak­en in sol­i­dar­i­ty with dis­grun­tled Ryan Air work­ers. Last August, Ryanair work­er John Foley staged a rooftop protest at Liv­er­pool John Lennon Air­port against the com­pa­ny’s anti-union activ­i­ties and poor record on work­ers rights.

Physics stu­dent Cather­ine Red­cliffe said, “Ryain Air’s relent­less pur­suit of prof­it over all oth­er con­cerns is tram­pling on work­ers rights and endan­ger­ing our future at the same time. The avi­a­tion indus­try takes more mon­ey out of North­west region than it puts in.”

Nonethe­less, Ryanair seemed adamant that the day had been a suc­cess claim­ing that their staff were “about to pack up and head home” when the stall was dis­rupt­ed at 12.30pm, even though they intend­ed to stay until 3pm.  Spokesper­son Stephen McNa­ma­ra said, “Ryanair thanks the Plane Stu­pid clowns for once again turn­ing a good pro­mo into a great pro­mo.”

Stu­dent Union democ­ra­cy

The stu­dents, who did not claim to be from any par­tic­u­lar group, were fur­ther angered at Stu­dent Union man­age­ment for rent­ing the space to Ryan Air in the first place. Pre­vi­ous­ly, stu­dents had vot­ed that their Union should cam­paign on cli­mate issues and not have busi­ness rela­tions with envi­ron­men­tal­ly-dam­ag­ing com­pa­nies.

Geog­ra­phy stu­dent Marc Hemp­ton, 20, said, “I want­ed to show how Ryanair’s pres­ence was a breach of our demo­c­ra­t­ic process. This is my Union and our col­lec­tive deci­sion had been side­lined by unelect­ed man­age­ment. We should­n’t allow envi­ron­men­tal­ly dam­ag­ing com­pa­nies in our Union where we have fought for pos­i­tive poli­cies on cli­mate change and against rela­tion­ships with uneth­i­cal com­pa­nies. I’m glad we sent them pack­ing for the day.”

On Wednes­day, activists had peti­tioned the Union man­age­ment with let­ters signed by stu­dents to can­cel the pro­mo­tion­al event. Man­age­ment refused, say­ing that Ryanair stall was bring­ing in extra cash.

Hemp­ton added, “In some ways, this is a micro­cosm of prob­lems regard­ing cli­mate change and work­ers rights. Where mak­ing a quick prof­it is pri­ori­tised at the expense of peo­ple and our envi­ron­ment, it makes it hard­er to address these issues and cre­ates big­ger costs fur­ther down the line.”

manchester@climatecamp.org.uk

 

3rd October: Manchester occupied!

Yes­ter­day saw the occu­pa­tion of Albert Square in Man­ches­ter out­side the town hall. Through­out the after­noon and evening sev­er­al open mic assem­bly ses­sions were held with peo­ple speak­ing about var­i­ous issues with the com­mon themes being resis­tance to cuts, com­mu­ni­ty organ­is­ing, direct democ­ra­cy, and occu­pa­tions. There was also a sound sys­tem pump­ing out tunes and some danc­ing in the rain.

Yes­ter­day saw the occu­pa­tion of Albert Square in Man­ches­ter out­side the town hall. Through­out the after­noon and evening sev­er­al open mic assem­bly ses­sions were held with peo­ple speak­ing about var­i­ous issues with the com­mon themes being resis­tance to cuts, com­mu­ni­ty organ­is­ing, direct democ­ra­cy, and occu­pa­tions. There was also a sound sys­tem pump­ing out tunes and some danc­ing in the rain.

The per­sis­tent rain proved to be a dis­cour­ag­ing fac­tor and after sev­er­al hours the size of the crowd pret­ty much matched the size of the tarps strung across lam­posts to pro­vide some cov­er (ear­li­er the police had tried to pre­vent peo­ple rig­ging up the shel­ters).

Lat­er in the evening peo­ple heck­led guests attend­ing tory par­ty fringe meet­ings at the town hall and the police went around grab­bing beers off a few peo­ple.

Around 9pm a group of 20–30 peo­ple with a sound sys­tem on their way to the occu­pa­tion from the squat­ted con­ver­gence cen­tre were has­sled by the cops and there were a few arrests.

http://www.occupymanchester.org

new EF! Action Update

In an end of the sum­mer com­pact EF!AU, find news about kick­ing shell in the teeth in Ross­port again and then some more, sol­i­dar­i­ty with the com­mu­ni­ty at Dale Farm, and anti-GM resis­tance — Spuds you Don’t Like demo in Eng­land, sab­o­tage in Ger­many, France and Scot­land.

In an end of the sum­mer com­pact EF!AU, find news about kick­ing shell in the teeth in Ross­port again and then some more, sol­i­dar­i­ty with the com­mu­ni­ty at Dale Farm, and anti-GM resis­tance — Spuds you Don’t Like demo in Eng­land, sab­o­tage in Ger­many, France and Scot­land.

On top of the usu­al con­tacts and dates, read about sol­i­dar­i­ty with jailed Swiss nan­otech activists, resis­tance against steel plants, mobile phone masts, min­ing and ener­gy projects here & across the world — stay angry and don’t car­ry on as usu­al!

The quar­ter­ly EF!AU, August 2011

Get ready for Hinkley blockade — 5th Stop New Nuclear newsletter

Wel­come to our fifth Stop New Nuclear newslet­ter. With lit­tle more than two weeks to go, we need to make a last effort to mobilise even more peo­ple to the block­ade of Hink­ley Point on 3 Octo­ber.

Wel­come to our fifth Stop New Nuclear newslet­ter. With lit­tle more than two weeks to go, we need to make a last effort to mobilise even more peo­ple to the block­ade of Hink­ley Point on 3 Octo­ber. More than 100 peo­ple have pledged to block­ade, and 150 to sup­port — can we reach the total of 300 pledgers with­in the next two weeks? Or even 400? Please help us to spread the infor­ma­tion, and ask your friends, fam­i­ly, col­leagues, … to pledge.

Since our last newslet­ter, we were able to wel­come CND Cym­ru as a new mem­ber of the Stop New Nuclear alliance, and we also received more organ­i­sa­tion­al pledges, among them Cum­bria and Lan­cashire CND, No Need for Nuclear, Stop Old­bury, and the French Sor­tir du Nucle­aire. This broad sup­port is impor­tant, as it shows the strength of our resis­tance against new nuclear pow­er sta­tions in Britain.

News about Hink­ley Point

We have been told that West Som­er­set Coun­cil and Elec­tricite de France (EDF) have now reached an agree­ment about the mon­ey to be paid by EDF (sec­tion 106 agreement),and this agree­ment will prob­a­bly go through the Coun­cil’s plan­ning com­mit­tee on 29 Sep­tem­ber. Once that hap­pened, EDF will have a green light to start with the pre­lim­i­nary works for Hink­ley Point C, even though it has not even applied to the Infra­struc­ture Plan­ning Com­mis­sion for the reac­tors them­selves.

How­ev­er, EDF is already late with the removal of asbestos from the site, which has been left over from the con­struc­tion of Hink­ley Point A. Accord­ing to the plan­ning con­di­tions, work should have been com­plet­ed by 31 August, but it is still con­tin­u­ing, and EDF is now apply­ing for an exten­sion until Feb­ru­ary 2012. Although EDF is in breach of the con­di­tions attached to its plan­ning per­mis­sion, Coun­ty Coun­cil plan­ners have decid­ed not to take any action. The Coun­cil is concerned,however, that if the work con­tin­ues into the win­ter months it could dis­turb migra­to­ry birds which fly along the coast past Hink­ley Point (see Stop Hink­ley press release, 14 Sep­tem­ber 2011).

The Envi­ron­ment Agency is present­ly con­sult­ing on two envi­ron­men­tal per­mit appli­ca­tions in rela­tion to Hink­ley Point C: make dis­pos­als and dis­charges of radioac­tive wastes oper­ate com­bus­tion process­es (stand­by gen­er­a­tors).

Objec­tions to both appli­ca­tions need to be in by 6 Octo­ber 2011.

More infor­ma­tion is avail­able on the web­site of the Envi­ron­ment Agency at http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/132474.aspx.

The Mar­coule nuclear plant in the south of France on Mon­day 12 Sep­tem­ber which killed one work­er and injured four oth­ers, high­light­ed again the dan­gers of nuclear pow­er. The plant, which is part­ly run by a sub­sidiary of EDF, stores large quan­ti­ties of radioac­tive waste and pro­duces mixed oxide (MOX) reac­tor fuel con­tain­ing plu­to­ni­um. There are also a num­ber of decom­mis­sioned reac­tors from the ear­ly years of the French nuclear pro­gramme.

Stop Hink­ley respond­ed with the fol­low­ing state­ment:

“The acci­dent in France is a sober­ing reminder of what can go wrong when a coun­try com­mits itself so heav­i­ly to nuclear pow­er, includ­ing all the prob­lems asso­ci­at­ed with han­dling radioac­tive waste. Yet we are now propos­ing to import French tech­nol­o­gy to Hink­ley Point and store waste there for 100 years or more. After Fukushi­ma in Japan this acci­dent serves as yet anoth­er trag­ic reminder of the dan­gers of nuclear pow­er and the urgent need for the UK gov­ern­ment to fol­low the lead tak­en by Ger­many in phas­ing it out.” (see http://stophinkley.org/Health/ExplosionSept2011.htm)

Train­ing

Sev­er­al Stop New Nuclear train­ings for the block­ade of Hink­ley Point took place in recent weeks — in Bris­tol, Swansea, Glas­ton­bury, Bridg­wa­ter, Comp­ton Dun­don, and today in Lon­don. Two more train­ings will take place:

Exeter, Sun­day, 25 Sep­tem­ber
A non-vio­lence train­ing for peo­ple from Exeter inter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Stop New Nuclear block­ade of Hink­ley Point on 3 Octo­ber will take place on Sun­day, 25 Sep­tem­ber 2011 from 1pm to 5.00pm.
Place: Uni­ver­si­ty of Exeter, Streatham Cam­pus, Amory Build­ing, Room 105
Con­tact: exeter [at] stopnewnuclear.org.uk

Leeds, Sun­day, 25 Sep­tem­ber
A non-vio­lence train­ing for peo­ple from York­shire inter­est­ed in
par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Stop New Nuclear block­ade of Hink­ley Point on 3 Octo­ber will take place on Sun­day, 25 Sep­tem­ber 2011 from 2.00pm to 6.00pm.
Place: Leeds Met­ro­pol­i­tan Uni­ver­si­ty — City Cam­pus, LS1 3HE, Calev­er­ley Build­ing, Room CL 309
Con­tact: York­shire CND, phone 01274 730 795, Email dominic [at] yorkshirecnd.org.uk

We will not able to organ­ise more train­ings in the two weeks before the block­ade, but for every­one who still wants to par­tic­i­pate in a train­ing, there will be sev­er­al train­ing ses­sions in the camp on the week­end before the block­ade:

Sat­ur­day, 1 Octo­ber, 7.30–10.30pm
Sun­day, 2 Octo­ber, 8.00–11.00am and 2.00–5.00pm

Legal observer/legal sup­port work­shop Sun­day 3.00–5.00pm

Please reg­is­ter if you want to take part in any of these work­shops at train­ing [at]stopnewnuclear.org.uk, espe­cial­ly if you do not want to stay in the camp. You can also reg­is­ter by call­ing our info num­ber 0845–2872381.

Reg­is­ter for the Stop New Nuclear camp!

We already have more than 45 peo­ple reg­is­tered for the Stop New Nuclear camp, which is about 4 miles from Hink­ley Point. The camp will be a space to pre­pare for the action (non-vio­lence train­ing and legal observ­er train­ing work­shops will take place in the camp on Sat­ur­day evening and Sun­day dur­ing the day), but also a place to meet oth­er activists, to share expe­ri­ence, and to make plans for the future.

Please note that the camp will be alco­hol and drug free, and that dogs are not allowed, as there are sheep near­by.

It is impor­tant that you reg­is­ter for the camp, so that we can plan food, but also so that we can send you the exact loca­tion and direc­tions how to get to the camp. Your can reg­is­ter on our web­site at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/register.

Demon­stra­tion in Bridg­wa­ter, 1 Octo­ber

Our week­end of actions will kick off with a demon­stra­tion in Bridg­wa­ter on 1 Octo­ber. We will have sev­er­al speak­ers, music, and pos­si­bly oth­er per­for­mances.

Assem­bly is from 1pm on at Kings Square in Bridg­wa­ter, next to the EDF offices. From there we will walk about 20–30 min­utes through Bridg­wa­ter and end the demon­stra­tion with a ral­ly at Corn­hill.

After the demon­stra­tion, a shut­tle ser­vice will be organ­ised to the Stop New Nuclear camp. There is also a local bus, and we will end in time for peo­ple to catch the local bus.

A map mark­ing the assem­bly point and the loca­tion of the ral­ly is
avail­able at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/node/48.

Trans­port and park­ing

On 3 Octo­ber, we will organ­ise trans­port from the camp to the block­ade, and back to the camp. But we will need your help! Let us know if you have spare seats in your car, or if you are will­ing to dri­ve a car/minibus. We still need dri­vers! Please con­tact us urgent­ly on cam­paign [at] stopnewnuclear.org.uk.

Trans­port is also being organ­ised from Glas­ton­bury (a coach will be leav­ing at 9am,to arrive at 10am), Bris­tol, and pos­si­bly from oth­er places. Please check out our trans­port sec­tion at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/transport, and use our trav­el forum to ask for and offer trans­port.

Park­ing will be avail­able about 200–300m from the main gate on Wicks Moor Drove, the main and only access road to Hink­ley Point. How­ev­er, this park­ing is not suit­able for coach­es. Coach­es will need to drop off their pas­sen­gers and park else­where.

We need your help

We need a lot of help to make the cam­paign a suc­cess. We need:
Dri­vers (30 Sep­tem­ber — 4 Octo­ber, trans­port to and from the camp, to and from the block­ade, and from police sta­tions).
1st aiders (for the camp and the block­ade)
mar­quees of any size — from 10–100 per­sons

Please con­tact us at cam­paign [at] stopnewnuclear.org.uk if you can help, or have any ques­tions.

Mobilise!

Two weeks to go. Two weeks to make this cam­paign and the block­ade a suc­cess. Please help us mobilise for the cam­paign. If you need fliers (see http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/node/10), please let us know, and we will send you some as long as stock lasts. And talk to your friends, neigh­bours, col­leagues and any­one you can think of to join you at the block­ade. We need to send a strong mes­sage to EDF and gov­ern­ment that we will resist nuclear new built in Britain, not only at Hink­ley, but every­where.

Donate

Stop New Nuclear is being organ­ised on a shoe string bud­get, and we need your dona­tions to make the block­ade a suc­cess. We need to hire minibus­es and oth­er trans­port for the block­ade, we need to set up infra­struc­ture for train­ings and work­shops in the camp, we need to print more fliers, and and and. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, all this costs mon­ey.

Accord­ing to our present cal­cu­la­tions, we will be about £1,300 short! Please help us to close this fund­ing short­fall urgent­ly.

Please give gen­er­ous­ly. You can donate online at
http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/donate, or you can send a cheque made payable to Stop­New Nuclear to:
Stop New Nuclear
c/o 5 Cale­don­ian Road
Lon­don N1 9DX
Thank you!

Stop New Nuclear
Stop New Nuclear is a cam­paign to stop new nuclear pow­er sta­tions and is an alliance of Cam­paign for Nuclear Dis­ar­ma­ment, Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work UK, Kick Nuclear, South West Against Nuclear, Shut­down Sizewell, Sizewell Block­aders, Tri­dent Ploughshares, and Stop Hink­ley

Email: campaign@stopnewnuclear.org.uk
Web: http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk

Occupy! Manchester — 2nd October Tory Party Conference

From 2–5 Octo­ber 2011 the Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty are com­ing to Man­ches­ter to hold their annu­al con­fer­ence. All eyes will be on this city as the Tory’s analyse their progress in imple­ment­ing their dis­as­trous pro­gram of pub­lic sec­tor spend­ing cuts, and reveal plans for the years ahead. This con­fer­ence should not go unop­posed. We intend to make the oppo­si­tion to the cuts and the wide­ly shared belief in a bet­ter alter­na­tive future vis­i­ble, and we’d like to do this with you!

From 2–5 Octo­ber 2011 the Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty are com­ing to Man­ches­ter to hold their annu­al con­fer­ence. All eyes will be on this city as the Tory’s analyse their progress in imple­ment­ing their dis­as­trous pro­gram of pub­lic sec­tor spend­ing cuts, and reveal plans for the years ahead. This con­fer­ence should not go unop­posed. We intend to make the oppo­si­tion to the cuts and the wide­ly shared belief in a bet­ter alter­na­tive future vis­i­ble, and we’d like to do this with you!

Tories not wel­come!

We have been inspired by the large and vibrant stu­dent protests that took place last win­ter, by the dynam­ic and high-impact actions of UK Uncut, and by the pop­u­lar demon­stra­tions we are wit­ness­ing across North Africa, the Mid­dle East, Spain and Greece. The times are chang­ing and peo­ple are speak­ing out against injus­tice and inequal­i­ty.

What are you plan­ning to do?

We need to try new forms of oppo­si­tion. We have marched in our tens of thou­sands at pre­vi­ous par­ty con­fer­ences, and in our hun­dreds of thou­sands in Lon­don. Cru­cial as they are, more march­es in big­ger num­bers will not be enough. As the anti-war protests of 2003 showed, the gov­ern­ment finds them easy to ignore. As anger at the Con-Dem cuts grows we need to make it more vis­i­ble.

The cuts are for the ben­e­fit of the rich – we refuse to pay for their cri­sis!

The TUC have called a nation­al demon­stra­tion to be held in Man­ches­ter on Sun­day Octo­ber 2nd. That after­noon anti-cuts pro­tes­tors will occu­py Albert Square to cre­ate an assem­bly of protest on the doorstep of the Tory’s con­fer­ence, a sym­bol of the mass oppo­si­tion to the cuts and a place for real
debate and dis­cus­sion about the alter­na­tives and the pos­si­bil­i­ties.

Come ready to make noise, and stay for the long haul!

Occupy!MCR

Sup­port­ers so far:

* Bak­ers Food and Allied Work­ers Union – Man­ches­ter and Mersey­side.
* Edu­ca­tion Activist Net­work.
* Geoff Brown, Sec­re­tary of the Man­ches­ter TUC (pc).
* Man­ches­ter Book Bloc.
* The Man­ches­ter Green and Black Cross.
* Man­ches­ter UKun­cut.
* Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty Staff against the Cuts.
* Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty Stu­dent Union.
* Queer Resis­tance North-West.
* Real Democ­ra­cy Man­ches­ter.
* Shift Mag­a­zine.
* Social­ist Work­ers Par­ty.
* Social­ist Work­er Stu­dent Soci­ety.

ASS needs you!

The Advi­so­ry Ser­vice for Squat­ters releas­es its first newslet­ter… and wants your help!

The hard­work­ing bunch at the Advi­so­ry Ser­vice for Squat­ters have just released their annu­al report in the form of a newslet­ter.

Its full of as much infor­ma­tion, juicy gos­sip and as many requests for help that you can fit on two sides of A4!

The Advi­so­ry Ser­vice for Squat­ters releas­es its first newslet­ter… and wants your help!

The hard­work­ing bunch at the Advi­so­ry Ser­vice for Squat­ters have just released their annu­al report in the form of a newslet­ter.

Its full of as much infor­ma­tion, juicy gos­sip and as many requests for help that you can fit on two sides of A4!

have a look here!: http://ompldr.org/vYTU5Zg/final-for-viewing.pdf

There are arti­cles on the con­sul­ta­tion papers, under­cov­er infil­tra­tors and the ASS’s opin­ion on an ex-mem­ber’s new anti-squat com­pa­ny.

They are also ask­ing for assis­tance! ASS cur­rent­ly need vol­un­teers for office shifts, vol­un­teers for tasks out­side the office and CASH!!!

If you can help with:

vol­un­teer­ing to do some time in the office
putting on a ben­e­fit gig/cafe/cinema etc
trans­la­tion (doc­u­ments to print or com­mu­ni­ca­tions)
print­ing
archiv­ing

…or in any oth­er way you can think of then drop us a line at friendsoftheass@gmail.com

Please dis­trib­ute!!

Final for print­ing (3MB): http://ompldr.org/vOXo0eA/final-for-printing.pdf

The Black Fish is looking for crew members

The marine pro­tec­tion organ­i­sa­tion The Black Fish is look­ing for peo­ple to join its direct action team and future ship’s crew.

The marine pro­tec­tion organ­i­sa­tion The Black Fish is look­ing for peo­ple to join its direct action team and future ship’s crew. “In order to be effec­tive in our marine con­ser­va­tion cam­paigns, we need to be out at sea, oppos­ing the most destruc­tive fish­ing and hunt­ing activ­i­ties, where they hap­pen away from the pub­lic eye.” For this rea­son The Black Fish is work­ing towards the pur­chase of an ocean going ves­sel and is look­ing for crew mem­bers.

“There are pos­si­bil­i­ties open­ing up to us which might see us get­ting access to a ves­sel in the near future. We need a crew for the ini­tial over­haul of this ship and prepar­ing it for its first cam­paign.” accord­ing to Wietse van der Werf, spokesper­son for the organ­i­sa­tion.

The Black Fish has launched a crew appli­ca­tion page where peo­ple can apply for vol­un­tary crew posi­tions. “We are look­ing for peo­ple with sail­ing expe­ri­ence but this is not a neces­si­ty for the entire crew. Will­ing­ness and ded­i­ca­tion to com­mit time and hard work to make future cam­paigns of The Black Fish a suc­cess, that is a must.”

Any ques­tions relat­ed to crew­ing with The Black Fish, please see the crew­ing page on our web­site or con­tact the crew­ing coor­di­na­tor at crew@theblackfish.org

We look for­ward to your appli­ca­tion!

http://www.theblackfish.org/