Category: Scotland (Central & Southern)

Scot­land (cen­tral & south­ern)

BBC Investigates Opencast Mining

THE  LOOSE ANTI OPEN-CAST NETWORK

BBC’s COUNRTYFILE PROGRAMME INVESTIGATES WHY A REMOTE HAMLET IS ON THE FRONT LINE OF A PLANNING BATTLE OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE.

THE  LOOSE ANTI OPEN-CAST NETWORK

BBC’s COUNRTYFILE PROGRAMME INVESTIGATES WHY A REMOTE HAMLET IS ON THE FRONT LINE OF A PLANNING BATTLE OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE.

A small vil­lage, of just 75 house­holds, is all that may stand between pre­serv­ing large sec­tions of the Eng­lish coun­try­side and the expressed desire of the UK Min­er­al Extrac­tion Indus­try to see more per­mis­sions giv­en to exploit­ing England’s min­er­al resources in areas that are more envi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive and / or are clos­er to where peo­ple live.

The unfor­tu­nate vil­lage is Hal­ton Lea Gate, locat­ed on the Cum­bria / Northum­ber­land bor­der and near an Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty. A team from the BBC’s Coun­r­ty­file pro­gramme was film­ing there recent­ly to inves­ti­gate why this spot now finds itself on the front line of a nation­al plan­ning con­tro­ver­sy.

 In ear­ly August, after a Pub­lic Inquiry into an Appeal to grant per­mis­sion for an Open­cast Mine, the Inspec­tor found in favour of the Appli­cant. The sting in the tale, for all oth­er com­mu­ni­ties in Eng­land, is the rea­son­ing giv­en by the Inspec­tor to allow the Appeal. His rea­son­ing set a new case law prece­dent, it is argued, which affects all future min­er­al plan­ning appli­ca­tions in Eng­land.

 What the Appli­cant has to repli­cate in the future, is the argu­ment used here: that there is a nation­al need for the min­er­al in ques­tion, in this case coal. If they can per­suade the Plan­ning Author­i­ty (or the Inspec­tor, if the Appli­ca­tion has gone to an Appeal) that this is the case, then ‘great weight’ has to be attached to this claim. So much weight it seems, that this fac­tor alone may over­ride all oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions.  (1)

This sit­u­a­tion has arisen as a con­se­quence of the Gov­ern­ment imple­ment­ing the new Nation­al Plan­ning Pol­i­cy Frame­work. In the time lead­ing up to the 2010 elec­tion, lob­by­ing organ­i­sa­tions such as Coal­pro and the CBI lob­bied long and hard for a relax­ation of the plan­ning rules for min­er­al extrac­tion. (2) It seems, from this exam­ple, the first Pub­lic Inquiry for min­er­al extrac­tion to be held under the new rules, that their efforts have been reward­ed. The advice of the Inspec­tor has now gone to the Depart­ment of Com­mu­ni­ties and Local Gov­ern­ment to be con­firmed or reject­ed by a Min­is­ter.

The BBC came to inves­ti­gate the issue and explore why local peo­ple have tak­en on the task of rais­ing £40,000 so that they can mount a Judi­cial Review over the deci­sion. If local peo­ple are suc­cess­ful in rais­ing the mon­ey and mount­ing a suc­cess­ful action, they may have pre­vent­ed the flood­gates from open­ing and saved Eng­land from expe­ri­enc­ing a rash of min­er­al plan­ning appli­ca­tions for devel­op­ing swathes of the coun­try­side. This is now a Pub­lic Appeal, and dona­tions can be made payable to The North Pen­nines Pro­tec­tion Group, who have been one of the local groups who have opposed this Appli­ca­tion

An e peti­tion to the Gov­ern­ment has been start­ed about this plan­ning deci­sion and its impli­ca­tion for sim­i­lar plan­ning deci­sions else­where which can be signed by fol­low­ing this link:

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/36985

Steve Leary for the Loose Anti Open­cast Net­work com­ment­ed

“ LAON was con­tact­ed by the BBC in the lead up to film­ing for the Coun­try­side pro­gramme. We are delight­ed to be able to coop­er­ate in the mak­ing of the pro­gramme and show why we argue that this is an issue of nation­al impor­tance which will affect oth­er com­mu­ni­ties up and down the Coun­try if the deci­sion is not changed.

We know of five oth­er open­cast mine appli­ca­tions, near Smal­ly in Der­byshire (George Farm) , Kirklees, Sth. York­shire (Dearne Lea), Trow­el in Not­ting­hamshire (Short­wood Farm) , Whit­ton­stall in Northum­ber­land ( Hood­sclose) and Gateshead  (Birk­lands) that will be affect­ed by this deci­sion if it stands.

In addi­tion, we are aware of three oth­er sites where a poten­tial appli­cant is mak­ing the final deci­sion to pro­ceed with a full appli­ca­tion in Gateshead,   Mar­ley Hill Recla­ma­tion) , Der­byshire ( Hill Top Project near Clay Cross) and Northum­ber­land  (Fer­neybeds near Wid­dring­ton Sta­tion, Northum­ber­land) which might also be affect­ed.

The issue here though, we believe, goes way beyond open­cast min­ing. It’s about relax­ing the rules around all forms of min­er­al extrac­tion from pits for sand, grav­el and clay to quar­ries for gran­ite and lime­stone to open­cast mines for coal. This is what the indus­try lob­bied for and now, it seems, the Gov­ern­ment has deliv­ered, if it upholds the Inspector’s rec­om­men­da­tion to approve the Appli­ca­tion and the Judi­cial Review fails. We there­fore urge peo­ple every­where, who cher­ish and love our coun­try­side, to sup­port both the peti­tion and the pub­lic appeal for mon­ey to take this case to a Judi­cial Review.”

The Coun­r­ty­file edi­tion of the pro­gramme is to be broad­cast on Sun­day 30th Sep­tem­ber 2012. It will include a 12 minute sec­tion on the Hal­ton Lea Gate issue.

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Ref­er­ences

1)   For more infor­ma­tion on the sig­nif­i­cance of this deci­sion as far as open­cast mine appli­ca­tions are con­cerned see  LAON PR7 here

http://nottingham.indymedia.org/articles/2754

2)   Evi­dence about the lob­by­ing to relax these plan­ning rules can be found here.

Brief­ing Note E2 “Ener­gy Pol­i­cy and the Pro­posed Nation­al Plan­ning Pol­i­cy Frame­work,” MOPG 2011  @

http://www.leicestershirevillages.com/measham/mopg-briefing-notes-series.html

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ABOUT LAON

The Loose Anti-Open­cast Net­work (LAON) has been in exis­tence since 2009. It  func­tions as a medi­um through to oppose open cast mine appli­ca­tions through which any per­son / group can com­mu­ni­cate ideas, infor­ma­tion, requests for infor­ma­tion and pos­si­bly con­cert­ed actions if we find a tar­get. In addi­tion feel free to invite any oth­er per­son / group who oppose open­cast min­ing appli­ca­tions, to join the net­work so that it grows. At present LAON links indi­vid­u­als and groups in N Ire­land, Scot­land, Wales, Northum­ber­land, Co Durham, Leeds, Kirklees Not­ting­hamshire, Der­byshire, Leices­ter­shire and Wal­sall.

You can now fol­low LAON on Twit­ter @ https://twitter.com/Seftonchase

Twyford Down anti-road protests gathering, September

There is going to be a Twyford Down anti-roads protest reunion to mark that it is 20 years since the protests start­ed.  It’s on 29–30 Sept, when it’ll be the Har­vest Moon.  

There is going to be a Twyford Down anti-roads protest reunion to mark that it is 20 years since the protests start­ed.  It’s on 29–30 Sept, when it’ll be the Har­vest Moon.  

There will be a camp run along the same lines as 20 years ago (bring what you expect to find… water butts, tents, food, etc).  That said, there will be some domes and the @ teapot are going to be doing cater­ing (Sat din­ner and Sun break­fast) — hur­rah!  Camp loca­tion to be on top of St Cather­ine’s Hill, near Win­ches­ter.

There will also be a protest / pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ty about this cur­rent Gov­ern­men­t’s mania of road­build­ing. 

 Please spread this amongst your con­tacts who you think may be inter­estd.  There is a Face­book page if you do such things called Twen­ty Years Since Twyford: http://www.facebook.com/events/344190508996315/

More details and fly­er down­load­able at http://bettertransport.org.uk/blogs/roads/100912-twyford-20

Aristocrat landlord’s garden opencasted!

18.07.2012 Ear­li­er today activists from Take Back the Land! vis­it­ed Lord Home’s man­sion in the Dou­glas Val­ley and open­cast­ed his gar­den, hop­ing to bring the issues clos­er to home for him.

18.07.2012 Ear­li­er today activists from Take Back the Land! vis­it­ed Lord Home’s man­sion in the Dou­glas Val­ley and open­cast­ed his gar­den, hop­ing to bring the issues clos­er to home for him. Lord Home owns Main­shill and all of Glen­tag­gart East which is cur­rent­ly being occu­pied by an action camp. Of course only some of the things that impact com­mu­ni­ties so much would have been felt because of this open­cast, such as see­ing a big mess. He won’t have to put up with the health impacts from dust and diesel fumes, the dan­ger on the roads, the noise, con­tempt from South Lanark­shire Coun­cil – the list goes on.

COAL ACTION SCOTLAND MEDIA RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE USE 18th July

Lord Home’s gar­den open­cast­ed by anti-coal activists

At 10:30 this morn­ing 20 envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice pro­test­ers entered the grounds of Lord Home’s state­ly home at Castle­mains in the Dou­glas Val­ley and began dig­ging up his front gar­den. The protest brought home to Lord Home how much of an eye sore an open cast next to your res­i­dence is. A ban­ner held up in front of his home which read “Com­mu­ni­ty Health not Lord Home’s Wealth!” Police attend­ed the scene but no arrests were made.

Rob Hearne, one of the activists dig­ging up the Lord’s gar­den said: “Lord Home is mak­ing mil­lions off open­cast coal min­ing in the Dou­glas Val­ley. He owns land cur­rent­ly being mined at Main­shill, and owns the entire Glen­tag­gart East site, next on the list to be mined. There is no com­mu­ni­ty con­sent for open­cast in this area, with 70% of peo­ple in Dou­glas oppos­ing Main­shill and over 650 let­ters of objec­tion sent to the coun­cil against it. Yet because of his aris­to­crat­ic and hered­i­tary priv­i­lege, he can do what he wants and walk all over the wish­es of the com­mu­ni­ty. We’re dig­ging up his gar­den to bring the issues clos­er to home.”

Local res­i­dent David Grey said: “The Lord owns every­thing around here and makes loads of mon­ey but gives vir­tu­al­ly noth­ing back to the com­mu­ni­ty. He gets mil­lions but we get can­cers, asth­ma and res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases. He is essen­tial­ly a par­a­site, suck­ing the wealth out of the area and con­sol­i­dat­ing it into his pri­vate estate.”

Clare Reed, anoth­er of the dig­gers at Castle­mains, added: “Lord Home doesn’t even live in the val­ley despite his mas­sive house and huge land own­er­ship. He lives in Lon­don, sits in the House of Lords and is Chair­per­son of Coutts Bank. He is total­ly com­plic­it in the destruc­tion caused by open­cast min­ing in the val­ley and all the health impacts inflict­ed on com­mu­ni­ties, but suf­fers none of the impacts him­self. In fact, he makes a killing – we esti­mate he’ll make up to £7 mil­lion off Glen­tag­gart East alone.”

Today’s protest fol­lows Monday’s block­ade of Bro­ken Cross Open Cast Coal Site and Saturday’s inva­sion of Main­shill Open Cast Coal Site where 45 activists stopped work on the site for the day. These actions are part of a week-long action camp and occu­pa­tion of Scot­tish Coal’s intend­ed new mine in the area, Glen­tag­gart East. The camp called “Take Back the Land!” has attract­ed activists from across Scot­land, the UK and Europe to take direct action against the blight of open­cast coal min­ing.

Coal Action Scot­land
contact@coalactionscotland.org.uk
http://takebacktheland.org.uk/

Broken Cross Open Cast Site blockaded – police act as Scottish Coal security

This morn­ing Bro­ken Cross open­cast site in the Dou­glas Val­ley was block­ad­ed for an hour and a half before Scot­tish Coal work­ers lift­ed three peo­ple in heavy con­crete lock-ons out of the road, all over­seen by Inspec­tor Whip (pho­tographed) of Strath­clyde Police. This isn’t the first time that Inspec­tor Whip has hurt peo­ple by lift­ing them out of the road. He’s reck­less and delib­er­ate­ly put people’s safe­ty at risk, all to pro­tect the prof­its of Scot­tish Coal.

COAL ACTION SCOTLAND MEDIA RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE USE 16th July 2012

Activists dis­rupt coal haulage and police take unac­cept­able risks of injury at Lanark­shire mine

At 6:00 this morn­ing a group of 20 envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice activists block­ad­ed the only entrance to Scot­tish Coal’s Bro­ken Cross Open Cast Coal Site [1] in the Dou­glas Val­ley. This pre­vent­ed all access to the site by coal lor­ries for one and a half hours before police ordered work­ers to dan­ger­ous­ly car­ry activists out of the road. Con­crete “lock-on tubes” were used to pre­vent three activists from being removed.

In an act of extreme reck­less­ness, Inspec­tor Whip of Strath­clyde Police ordered Scot­tish Coal employ­ees to drag pro­test­ers out of the access road, while they were still attached to their lock-on tubes, each weigh­ing around 50kg. One of those moved was injured in this inci­dent. The three have been arrest­ed and are cur­rent­ly being held in cus­tody.

Rob Hearne, one of the activists sup­port­ing the protest at the mine said: “This is not the first time that Inspec­tor Whip and Strath­clyde Police have shown such utter dis­re­gard for the safe­ty of anti-coal activists. This kind of behav­iour is total­ly unac­cept­able, where untrained work­ers are allowed to assault peo­ple in such a way, break­ing all health and safe­ty reg­u­la­tions and com­mit­ting crim­i­nal offences. Strath­clyde Police are act­ing as Scot­tish Coal’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty.”

The protest was intend­ed to stop coal from being trans­port­ed from the mine to rail­heads and to oppose Scot­tish Coal’s exten­sion to the mine as part of their “for­ward strat­e­gy” [2]. In par­tic­u­lar, it aimed to stop coal HGVs from being rout­ed through Dou­glas and Gle­spin, an issue of par­tic­u­lar impor­tance for local com­mu­ni­ties.

Gle­spin res­i­dent David Grey said: “A top traf­fic police offi­cer has been quot­ed in the past as say­ing that some­one will have to be killed on Lanarkshire’s roads before some­thing is done about the haulage of coal in this area. HGVs pass right through Dou­glas and Gle­spin, past two pri­ma­ry schools with no lev­el cross­ings, some­thing that Scot­tish Coal, South Lanark­shire Coun­cil and Scot­tish Min­is­ters all said would nev­er hap­pen. And now Inspec­tor Whip endan­gers the lives of peo­ple try­ing to make the roads safer for local res­i­dents! It’s out­ra­geous. Inspec­tor Whip should be ashamed for putting the prof­its of coal above the safe­ty of peo­ple in the val­ley.”

Today´s protest fol­lows Saturday’s inva­sion of Main­shill Open Cast Coal Site [3] where 45 activists stopped work on the site for the day. This is part of a week-long action camp and occu­pa­tion of Scot­tish Coal’s intend­ed new mine in the area, Glen­tag­gart East [4]. The camp called “Take Back the Land!” [5] has attract­ed activists from across Scot­land, the UK and Europe to take direct action against the blight of open­cast coal min­ing.

Coal Action Scot­land are prepar­ing a for­mal com­plaint to Strath­clyde Police about this inci­dent.

For inter­views and com­ment please con­tact:

Roger Wilkins on 07917141720 or email  contact@coalactionscotland.org.uk

Pho­tos can be emailed upon request.

Notes to edi­tors:

[1] Bro­ken Cross is the larg­er of Scot­tish Coal’s two oper­at­ing open cast coal mines in the Dou­glas Val­ley, South Lanark­shire, pro­duc­ing around 15,000 tonnes of coal a week

[2] South Lanark­shire Coun­cil approved Scot­tish Coal’s North (East) Exten­sion to Bro­ken Cross, the third such exten­sion, despite huge com­mu­ni­ty oppo­si­tion to it. The exten­sion will see the life of the mine extend­ed until 2024, way beyond what Scot­tish Plan­ning Pol­i­cy con­sid­ers an accept­able cumu­la­tive impact and some­thing that local res­i­dents find total­ly unac­cept­able.

[3] Main­shill Wood was occu­pied by the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp on 12th June 2009. It was even­tu­al­ly evict­ed on 25th Jan­u­ary 2010 in an evic­tion that last­ed 5 days. It involved 45 arrests and was the largest protest site evic­tion in the UK since Man­ches­ter Air­port 11 years pre­vi­ous­ly. There was huge com­mu­ni­ty oppo­si­tion to the mine local­ly, with 654 objec­tions being lodged against the appli­ca­tion. Despite Lord Home, the land own­er, telling local res­i­dents that he’d safe­guard the area from min­ing, he did the oppo­site and is now being paid by Scot­tish Coal for lease of the land. Since the start of coal­ing oper­a­tions at the site in Feb­ru­ary 2010 local res­i­dents have com­plained of noise and dust impacts and dan­ger on the roads as coal HGVs are rout­ed through Dou­glas and Gle­spin.

Lord Home owns Dou­glas & Angus Estates. He is the son of the for­mer prime min­is­ter Alec Home, a peer in the House of Lords and chair­per­son of Coutts Bank. He lives in Lon­don but has a state­ly home at Castle­mains in the Dou­glas Val­ley.

Scot­tish Coal cur­rent­ly have two oper­a­tional sites in the val­ley, Main­shill and Glen­tag­gart, down from 5 in 2010.

[4] Scot­tish Coal have been giv­en approval by South Lanark­shire Coun­cil despite 232 let­ters of objec­tion to mine 4 mil­lion tonnes of coal from the Glen­tag­gart East site, adja­cent to the exist­ing Glen­tag­gart site which was in oper­a­tion between 2001 and 2011. RSPB object­ed to the appli­ca­tion because of the eco­log­i­cal­ly impor­tant blan­ket bog and pro­tect­ed bird breed­ing habi­tats on the 350 hectare site. The mine will be 1.5km away from two pri­ma­ry schools and con­tin­ue the encir­clement of Dou­glas Val­ley vil­lages with open­cast mines.

Glen­tag­gart East is part of Scot­tish Coal’s “For­ward Strat­e­gy”, unveiled in Sep­tem­ber 2011. It includ­ed 3 new open­cast mine appli­ca­tions. One of these, Auld­ton Heights, was with­drawn fol­low­ing a sub­stan­tial cam­paign against it. A fur­ther exten­sion to Bro­ken Cross, an exist­ing site, was grant­ed per­mis­sion by the coun­cil, despite oppo­si­tion from local res­i­dents.

[5] for more infor­ma­tion about Take Back the Land! please see the fol­low­ing web­site:  http://takebacktheland.org.uk/

Mainshill Open Cast Coal Site shut down for the day!

July 14th, 2012

July 14th, 2012

At 10:00 this morn­ing a group of 45 activists invad­ed Scot­tish Coal’s Main­shill Open Cast Coal Site near Dou­glas, South Lanark­shire, and occu­pied machin­ery and pre­vent­ed coal­ing oper­a­tions on the site and shut it down for the day. Machines includ­ing a “prime mover” were occu­pied and all work was stopped com­plete­ly. This is the first action at Take Back the Land! - the action camp in the Dou­glas Val­ley will be up and run­ning until the 18th July. Updates and pho­tos to fol­low

 

Take Back the Land: site taken, Glentaggart East occupied!

11/7/2012

Yes­ter­day evening we occu­pied Scot­tish Coal’s new open­cast mine site in the Dou­glas Val­ley, South Lanark­shire, for Take Back the Land! – a week of action against the destruc­tion of open­cast min­ing.

11/7/2012

Yes­ter­day evening we occu­pied Scot­tish Coal’s new open­cast mine site in the Dou­glas Val­ley, South Lanark­shire, for Take Back the Land! – a week of action against the destruc­tion of open­cast min­ing.

The camp will run until the 18th July and there will be a mass action on Sat­ur­day 14th July. There’s detailed direc­tions to the camp here  http://takebacktheland.org.uk/?page_id=6 and the web­site here  http://takebacktheland.org.uk/ has all the infor­ma­tion you’ll need to par­tic­i­pate. Come and get involved – take action against cor­po­rate greed, fat-cat land­lords and cor­rupt local gov­ern­ment!

Action round-up from Faslane anti-nuke action month

Four Olympic Gold Medal Winners arrested at Faslane Naval Base on Monday 11th June!

The  four women from Glas­gow and Edin­burgh are mem­bers of the Gare­loch Hor­tis peace group which was tak­ing part in thir­ty days of actions to mark thir­ty years of Faslane Peace Camp’s protest against Tri­dent nuclear weapons. The group staged the Peace Olympics with events as var­ied as syn­chro­nised swim­ming and putting the Hag­gis.

The medal­lists were arrest­ed dur­ing the Tug of Peace across the North Gate of the base.

The event drew atten­tion to the con­tin­ued pres­ence of the ille­gal and dead­ly weapons in Scot­land, and all eight oth­er nuclear nations. The win­ners’ podi­um high­light­ed that the only way to win the Race for Peace is to lay down the weapons of mass destruc­tion.

 

Activists blockade Faslane Naval Base

19.6.2012

Today at 7 o’ clock in the morn­ing activists of the Faslane Peace­camp block­ad­ed the Tri­dent Naval Base. Three peo­ple locked on in front of the South Gate. From the orig­i­nal five peo­ple at the North Gate two were arrest­ed imme­di­ate­ly while the rest were able to block­ade one lane of the road. The block­ade last­ed about 90 min­utes.


A spokesper­son said on behalf of the Peace Camp: ” We are hav­ing this block­ade today because we want to show our oppo­si­tion against nuclear weapons. We express our fear and our anger in a non­vi­o­lent way. We ask the British gov­ern­ment to lis­ten to the opin­ion of the major­i­ty of Scot­tish peo­ple and MSP’s. The Peo­ple do not want Tri­dent! They do not want this base with it’s nuclear weapons in Scot­land. Due to the fact that in the next few years Scot­tish inde­pen­dence may be achieved now is the time to put pres­sure upon the British gov­ern­ment. Instead of start­ing to put mon­ey into a Tri­dent replace­ment we want them to shut down the Faslane Naval Base and stop their nuclear weapons pro­gram.”

An inter­na­tion­al activist added: “This block­ade was a very inter­na­tion­al one. Peo­ple from all parts of Britain and activists from Spain and Swe­den were involved. I think that it is my right and my duty as a glob­al cit­i­zen to do non­vi­o­lent direct actions against nuclear weapons as long as our gov­ern­ments do not ful­fill their duty and stop fight­ing wars. Nuclear weapons are ille­gal by inter­na­tion­al human­i­tar­i­an law and I want all coun­tries to respect this and make a step to a more peace­ful world.”

This block­ade is part of the 30 days of action from the 9th June to the 9th July. To find out more about what has hap­pened and will hap­pen in the future vis­it our blog.

http://faslanepeacecamp.wordpress.com/

Faslane Peace Campers Trespass at Coulport Nuclear Weapons Depot

15/06/2012

Angus Chalmers and Leon­na O’Neill of Faslane Peace Camp entered RNAD Coul­port in the ear­ly hours of Wednes­day morn­ing.

They left the camp on foot at approx­i­mate­ly 10pm with the inten­tions of see­ing how close they could get to Coul­port under the cov­er of dark­ness. By the time they were approach­ing the out­er fence perime­ter the two still had­n’t been appre­hend­ed or detect­ed by secu­ri­ty or any of the night vision cctv cam­eras, and so decid­ed to con­tin­ue to see how far luck (or the inep­ti­tudes of the secu­ri­ty sys­tem on what should be the most heav­i­ly guard­ed naval depot in the UK) would get them.

They decid­ed to approach the Explo­sives Han­dling Jet­ty via the shore line and entered by wad­ing water and climb­ing a razor wire fence. At this point they decid­ed to walk vis­i­bly and announce them­selves to the first police they saw. To their sur­prise they were met with zero secu­ri­ty per­son­nel and were able to access a jet­ty a mat­ter of feet from the Explo­sives Han­dling Jet­ty where the Tri­dent nuclear war­heads are loaded to the Van­gau­rd sub­marines.

Angus climbed a fur­ther fence into the estab­lish­ment set­ting off the ban­dit alarm and alert­ing the MOD secu­ri­ty and cctv cam­era oper­a­tors. Both were soon appre­hend­ed by MOD police and arrest­ed and charged with miil­i­tary by-laws and the Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SOCPA). Both were held in cus­tody until court on Thurs­day after­noon where the SOCPA charges were dropped and they plead­ed not guilty to the by-laws charges.

Leon­na and Angus said “This is evi­dence that the Couport Nuclear Weapons Depot is unsafe. The capac­i­ty for this tech­nol­o­gy to irreper­a­bly destroy life and the envi­ron­ment should be rea­son enough to ensure that it is safe guard­ed and pro­tect­ed in a way that does not allow for human error or com­pla­cen­cy. The rel­a­tive ease at which we were able to approach and enter Coul­port on foot and the close prox­i­matey we were able to get to the Explo­sives Han­dling Jet­ty is sur­pris­ing and dis­turb­ing”.

 

Faslane Peace Camp and Trident Ploughshares Trespass at Faslane Naval Base

2/07/2012

 
Sev­en activists from Faslane Peace Camp and Tri­dent Ploughshares entered Faslane naval base this morn­ing with four mem­bers of the group slip­ping past guards and reach­ing points up to 100 yards inside the base. A fur­ther two were arrest­ed in the attempt.

At 7am this morn­ing Faslane Peace Camp and Tri­dent Ploughshares activists attend­ed the North gate of the Faslane Naval Base to ser­e­nade the approach­ing morn­ing shift staff with peace and nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment songs. The act dou­bled as a ruse to enable fif­teen of the group to attempt enter­ing the base. One TP activist, Bri­an Larkin, suc­ceed­ed in gain­ing entry to the base whilst the rest were pre­vent­ed from doing so by Minit­sry of Defence and Strath­clyde police.

Bri­an was charged with breach of SOCPA, the Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime and Police Act, and mil­i­a­try by-laws and lat­er released on an under­tak­ing. Upon being released Larkin said “the seri­ous organ­ised crime hap­pens inside the base and not in these actions for peace and dis­ar­ma­ment. It is the ongo­ing deploy­ment of Tri­dent sub­marines – each car­ry­ing 48 war­heads, eight times more destruc­tive than the bomb dropped on Hiroshi­ma which killed 200,000 peo­ple – that con­sti­tutes seri­ous organ­ised crime and vio­lates every prin­ci­ple of human­i­ty in inter­na­tion­al law.”

In a show of the same relent­less per­sis­tence that has kept the Peace Camp and the anti-nuclear move­ment going over the years, the group lat­er returned to make a sec­ond attempt at breach­ing the North Gate. Two were arrest­ed dur­ing the attempt whilst six gained entry, four of which reach­ing up to 100 yards inside the base.

The ban­dit alarm was acti­vat­ed and the Naval Base was locked down, pre­vent­ing traf­fic from enter­ing the base and nor­mal oper­a­tions to con­tin­ue with­in the base for 45 min­utes. The action was part of the Peace Camp’s 30 Days of Action mark­ing 30 years of con­tin­u­ous resis­tance to nuclear weapons at Faslane. Thir­ty peo­ple have been arrest­ed in the cam­paign which began on 9 June. Nine peo­ple were arrest­ed today.

It is not yet clear what the oth­er eight will be charged with but a breach of SOCPA charge is like­ly in addi­tion to breach­ing mil­i­tary by-laws. Angus Chalmers of the Fasland Peace Camp said “This land has been fenced and des­ig­nat­ed as a SOCPA area in order to make pos­si­ble the seri­ous crime of deploy­ing Tri­dent.” Mar­garet Brem­n­er of the Tri­dent Ploughshares Gare­loch Hor­ti­cul­tur­al­ists affin­i­ty group added “We cross this line today to demon­strate that this land, this earth, does not belong to a state which is using it to threat­en the destruc­tion of the earth and all its peo­ples. We enter this gate in order to reclaim land for life not death.”

Each of those tres­pass­ing were car­ry­ing let­ters explain­ing the inter­na­tion­al ille­gal­i­ty of nuclear weapons to present to work­ers inside the base. In 1996, the Inter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice wrote the advi­so­ry opin­ion that not only would the use of nuclear weapons be ille­gal but the very threat of use through deploy­ment, main­te­nance and upgrade of nuclear weapons sys­tems is in con­tra­ven­tion to the Nuclear Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty.

Under the terms of the NPT which entered into force over forty years ago, the UK gov­ern­ment is oblig­at­ed to bring nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment to com­ple­tion. Instead the UK gov­ern­ment has con­tin­ued to main­tain and is now upgrad­ing its nuclear weapons sys­tem. The recent news that the MoD has award­ed lucra­tive con­tracts to arms com­pa­nies for the ini­tial stages of a Tri­dent replace­ment pro­gramme fur­thers this ongo­ing mock­ery of our inter­na­tion­al legal oblig­a­tions.

As long as our gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to fail in it’s oblig­a­tion to make seri­ous moves toward com­plete nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment, mem­bers of Tri­dent Plougshares and Faslane Peace Camp are com­mit­ted to non-vio­lent direct action to dis­rupt the deploy­ment of these ille­gal and immoral weapons.

Fur­ther demon­stra­tions are planned for the remain­der of the thir­ty days of action which will fin­ish on July 9th. Amongst oth­er actions, there will be an aca­d­e­m­ic sem­i­nar block­ade on Fri­day and a Rebel Clown Army insur­gence on Sat­ur­day. For more infor­ma­tion on the 30Days Action Cam­paign con­tact the camp via  faslane30@gmail.com.

Faslane Peace Camp: 01436 820901 or 07511793227
Tri­dent Ploughshares: Bri­an Larkin 07768 312676

For More infor­ma­tion on
Tri­dent Ploughshares see: www.tridentploughshares.org.uk
Faslane Peace Camp and 30 Days of Action see: http://faslanepeacecamp.wordpress.com/

 

Earth First! Summer Gathering Update — programme, directions, website and more

It’s only weeks until the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing begins.
Five days of work­shops, info shar­ing and learn­ing new skills, 1–5 August.

It’s only weeks until the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing begins.
Five days of work­shops, info shar­ing and learn­ing new skills, 1–5 August.

The Earth First Sum­mer Gath­er­ing takes place each year to pro­vide a space in which the rad­i­cal ecol­o­gy move­ment can share skills and plan for future cam­paigns and actions.

Dis­cus­sions around the impor­tance of com­mu­ni­ty build­ing in inner cities, the state of the anar­chist move­ment and patri­archy in activism.

Skill shares includ­ing wom­en’s self-defence, research­ing cor­po­ra­tions and nav­i­ga­tion.

Cam­paign round ups from Frack Off! Smash Edo and Lud­dites 2000 amongst oth­ers.

If you have work­shops you like to run or dis­cus­sions you’d like to facil­i­tate then email us at earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net

Full pro­gramme.

Camp­ing is on a slid­ing scale of £30 to £15, pay what is gen­uine­ly appro­pri­ate.

Food will be from Anar­chist Teapot and meal tick­ets will be £5 a day.

Kids can have sep­a­rate meals if they want for £3 a day.

There will be a cou­ple of kids spaces, and spe­cial work­shops being ran for kids. If you’d like to run any kids work­shops get in touch at earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net.

If you want you dog to come along then you’re going to have to email us at earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net

And of course there will be enter­tain­ment and a bar open in the evenings.

The camp is ½ mile from the Berring­ton vil­lage, and 1 mile from the larg­er vil­lage of Cross Hous­es.

We encour­age non-cycling campers to use pub­lic trans­port if pos­si­ble as Cross Hous­es is on a bus route.

BY TRAIN
The near­est train sta­tion is Shrews­bury. You can then get the bus to Cross Hous­es (see below). If com­ing from a long dis­tance it can some­times be cheap­er to get a tick­et to a large sta­tion such as Birm­ing­ham, Wolver­hamp­ton, Man­ches­ter or Crewe and then a sep­a­rate tick­et on to Shrews­bury. Check nation­al rail for train times and prices. If com­ing from the Lon­don direc­tion, it’s gen­er­al­ly cheap­er to buy a Super Off­peak Return, spec­i­fy­ing “Lon­don Mid­land & Arri­va only”.

BY BIKE
See here for direc­tions and a map to the camp from Shrews­bury for cyclists and dri­vers.

BY BUS
When you arrive at Shrews­bury train sta­tion, ask some­one to point you to the bus sta­tion. It’s only a few min­utes walk from the train sta­tion. The bus ser­vice that runs from town to with­in a mile of Crabap­ple is the 436 towards Bridg­north. It runs every hour from 7.40am to 5.40pm with a “late” one at 7.40pm. The jour­ney to Cross Hous­es is approx 15 mins. You will need to press the stop but­ton when you see the sign for Cross Hous­es. Some of the ser­vices on this route are low-floor acces­si­ble bus­es. Please note that the last bus leaves Shrews­bury at 7.40pm, Mon­day to Sat­ur­day and there are no Sun­day bus ser­vices. For the bus timetable see here http://shropshire.gov.uk/bustimes/timetable.jsc?timetable=436mfi0412.
The camp itself is about 1 mile from the bus stop. From the bus stop at Cross Hous­es, walk back towards Shrews­bury past the petrol sta­tion (on your right) and take the first left turn signed “Berring­ton”. After about ½ mile, the road forks at the edge of the vil­lage. Take the right turn sign­post­ed “Bet­ton Abbots” and we’re about ¼ mile up the road on the right.
If you intend to come by bus but need help get­ting to and from the bus stop, you can arrange a pick up with us: details will be avail­able near­er the time.

BY TAXI
There is also a taxi rank just out­side Shrews­bury train sta­tion. Acces­si­ble taxis can be got from here.- but it is MUCH cheap­er to book a cab from a local com­pa­ny – Comet Cabs 01743 344444, or Vin­cent Cabs 01743 367777. Vin­cents also have a book­ing office just across the road from the sta­tion, which is handy if you don’t have a phone to book a cab in advance.

USEFUL LINKS
See here direc­tions and a map to the camp from Shrews­bury for cyclists and dri­vers.
See a map of where the site is here
See the bus timetable
Direc­tions from places oth­er than Shrews­bury

Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing Col­lec­tive
earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net

http://earthfirstgathering.weebly.com

Carry On Craneing: Nuclear Disarmament Banner Drop!

9.6.2012

9.6.2012

In a pub­lic dis­play to com­mence our 30 Days of Direct Action Cam­paign, three Faslane Peace Campers are cur­rent­ly drop­ping ban­ners from the Clyde­bank land­mark gantry crane in Glas­gow. “Nuclear Dis­ar­ma­ment. If Not Now, When?”!
Plan­ning to make a day of it, they have tak­en a love­ly packed lunch and some lit­er­a­ture. How­ev­er, quite a few police vans were on scene almost imme­di­ate­ly and are mak­ing efforts to remove them.

This is the first of many anti-nuclear actions planned to mark the 30th anniver­sary of the Camp. In this run up to a Scot­tish Inde­pen­dence Ref­er­en­dum cou­pled with the West­min­ster vote on Tri­dent replace­ment in wait­ing, we have a very real chance to affect the shape of the future UK nuclear defence poli­cies. Scot­land could hold the key to UK nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment.

Now is the time for a renewed anti-nuclear insur­gency. Come to the camp and join in our 30 Days of Direct Action.

faslane30@riseup.net

FASLANE 30 DAYS OF ACTION: UPDATE AND FINAL CALL OUT

As of June 12th this year, the Peace Camp will have been in exis­tence for 30  years. Whilst it is great that there has been such ded­i­ca­tion from thou­sands over the years, the radioac­tive beast still has­n’t been chased from it’s lair! A 30 Day cam­paign of anti-nuclear insub­or­di­na­tion, from June 9th to July 9th, has thus been planned.

As of June 12th this year, the Peace Camp will have been in exis­tence for 30  years. Whilst it is great that there has been such ded­i­ca­tion from thou­sands over the years, the radioac­tive beast still has­n’t been chased from it’s lair! A 30 Day cam­paign of anti-nuclear insub­or­di­na­tion, from June 9th to July 9th, has thus been planned.

You can find details of some of the pub­lic events list­ed chrono­log­i­cal­ly below, but for the most part, there will be art­ful insur­gency through­out of a nature we would pre­fer not to dis­close to “the pow­ers that be”… Ener­gies and cus­to­di­al time will­ing, we hope to take non-vio­lent direct action at least once a day! And not just at Faslane, oh no!

So do come along when­ev­er you can and you will find actions wait­ing to hap­pen via autonomous, inclu­sive, con­sen­sus based plan­ning and par­tic­i­pa­tion. Every­one is wel­come (except for under­cov­er police offi­cers… We have trained a dog to sniff you out. You have been warned.) Fun, frol­ics, veg­an feasts and brush­es with the law are all guar­an­teed!

With a vote on Scot­tish Inde­pen­dence and Tri­dent replace­ment in wait­ing this is the time for a renewed cam­paign of resis­tance!

There are scenic camp­ing spots and veg­an food will be pro­vid­ed for all meals (dona­tions for which will be grate­ful­ly received from those who can afford it). Car­a­vans will be allo­cat­ed on a needs basis first so do let us know in advance. We can answer ques­tions and queries by email or phone us on 01436 820901 or 07511793227.

Please pro­lif­er­ate this in any way that you can.
We love you and need your help to be very naughty through­out our 30 Day cam­paign,
Faslane Peace Camp

P.S. THIS IS NOT A PARTY. The sole inten­tion of this cam­paign is to res­ur­rect an anti nuclear cam­paign at Faslane that has long been wan­ing at a time when it is most essen­tial in con­nec­tion to the Scot­tish Inde­pen­dence debate, Tri­dent replace­ment and a poten­tial for actu­al nuclear decom­mis­sion­ing in the UK. Repeat, THIS IS NOT A PARTY. Do come if you wish to be part of a big team of love­li­ness, direct action and action sup­port. Do not come if you just want a par­ty.

EVENTS THAT WE CAN ANNOUNCE:

PEACE PICNIC JUNE 17TH: Helens­burgh CND would like to invite all local groups to a peace pic­nic at Faslane North Gate on Sun­day June 17th from noon to 4pm. Jeely Peace cafe from Stir­ling CND will pro­vide cater­ing. Please bring ban­ners, musi­cal instru­ments and your friends. The Peace Camp will be pleased to wel­come you before or after the pic­nic, or any time, ever.

PEACE MARCH FROM GLASGOW TO FASLANE 21ST-23RD JUNE: A group of enthu­si­as­tic walk­ers and con­cerned cit­i­zens will meet at George Square, Glas­gow at mid­day on Thurs 21 June to walk to Faslane in the name of peace and no nukes! They will be stop­ping to camp en route overnight. The pace will be relaxed. Every­one is wel­come, bring ban­ners and prac­ti­cal shoes!

RISE UP SINGING 1ST AND 2ND JULY: *Come and sing Tri­dent out of Faslane and out of Scot­land! *To re-invig­o­rate the diverse cre­ativ­i­ty of Faslane 365 and to keep the issue of nuclear weapons firm­ly in the pub­lic eye and on the polit­i­cal agen­da, Rise Up Singing (a Tri­dent Ploughshares affin­i­ty group) has organ­ised a two-day gath­er­ing to cel­e­brate the 30th birth­day of Faslane Peace Camp. Every­one wel­come! No singing expe­ri­ence nec­es­sary. Bring a song to share, a ban­ner and some cake, and we’ll pro­vide the tea.

ACADEMIC SEMINAR ROADBLOCK 6TH JULY:
On Fri­day July 6th aca­d­e­mics and activists from all over the world will par­tic­i­pate in a sem­i­nar block­ade as part of Faslane 30. The trans-dis­ci­pli­nary sem­i­nar block­ade fol­lows sim­i­lar actions at Faslane in 2005 and at COP15 in Copen­hagen in 2009 and is part of an emerg­ing tra­di­tion of putting social the­o­ry into per­son­al prac­tice. The theme of  the sem­i­nar is ‘secu­ri­ty’ and par­tic­i­pants are invit­ed to reflect on the com­plex issue of nuclear weapons from a range of per­spec­tives ‑gov­er­nance, secu­ri­ti­sa­tion and dis­cours­es of ‘ter­ror’, ethics, as well envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice. Leav­ing moral­i­ty aside for just one moment, we ask how is spend­ing on nuclear weapons jus­ti­fied strate­gi­cal­ly, eco­nom­i­cal­ly and social­ly in an era when the nature of con­flict is so changed, when much of the world is in eco­nom­ic melt­down and so many peo­ple are suf­fer­ing from poli­cies of aus­ter­i­ty? The sem­i­nar block­ade will be peace­ful but will insist on claim­ing the pub­lic space for demo­c­ra­t­ic debate on what secu­ri­ty means both geopo­lit­i­cal­ly and in people’s every­day lives. Con­tri­bu­tions will engage with broad­er themes of pol­i­tics, democ­ra­cy, gov­ern­men­tal­i­ty, con­flict res­o­lu­tion, cit­i­zen­ship, glob­al
rela­tions and anti-war. The sem­i­nar will involve cre­ative pub­lic and par­tic­i­pa­to­ry schol­ar­ship, using a vari­ety of media and forms: paper pre­sen­ta­tions are envis­aged — though Pow­er­Point is logis­ti­cal­ly unfea­si­ble! — along­side work­shops for small group debate, expe­ri­ence shar­ing and oth­er kinds of learn­ing. In par­tic­u­lar, we hope that peace  cam­paign­ers at the camp will be cen­tral­ly involved in the sem­i­nar. The tim­ing and exact loca­tions of sem­i­nar events will nec­es­sar­i­ly be deter­mined on the day, but par­tic­i­pants are invit­ed to gath­er at the Peace Camp between 8 and 9.30 am.

CIRCA 7TH JULY:
The Clan­des­tine Insur­gent Rebel Clown Army (CIRCA) will NOT be march­ing on Faslane nuclear sub­ma­rine lair on Sat­ur­day 7th of July, oh no. Even though the Tri­dent mis­siles at Faslane Naval Base could kill all the Clowns on the plan­et –and all the clowns too! – we won’t be there. Even though the Tri­dent mis­siles at Faslane are going to be replaced at an astro­nom­ic cost when all Clowns are feel­ing the pinch, we will not be roused to action. Even though none of our Clown com­rades and friends in Scot­land want Tri­dent or its replace­ment, CIRCA aren’t for turn­ing (up). Most of all, even though Rebel Clowns would defend every­one for just the price of a rub­ber dingy and load of cus­tard pies, even though Tri­dent replace­ment will take our Army jobs away, we will NOT be part of Faslane 30. Aca­d­e­mics say that CIRCA has died a death in Britain, and they are right. They must be right because they are aca­d­e­mics and aca­d­e­mics know every­thing about elites, exploita­tion, mil­i­tari­sa­tion… (Fun­ny how noth­ing changes, then, eh?) How­ev­er. A new Army of Rebel Clowns from all over Britain is trained and ready to join our inter­na­tion­al com­rades and peace camp friends to PARTY on the 30th anniver­sary of resist­ing nuclear non­sense at Faslane. If Tri­dent makes us redun­dant and aca­d­e­mics pro­nounce us dead, we will come to the par­ty as the unem­ploy­able undead, as gum­my vam­pires, veg­an zom­bies and mangy were­wolves. CIRCA will NOT be march­ing on Faslane, but a ghost army of Rebels Clowns – sea­soned corpses and the fresh­ly (sic) deceased (dis­eased?) might, just might, be there! Come on, do the  Res­ur­rec­tion-Insur­rec­tion Shuf­fle!

… And the rest is top secret!