Category: South East England

South East Eng­land

Day of Action against Extraction, April 19/April 20 — 2011

Com­mu­ni­ties around the world are under attack from extrac­tive indus­tries that poi­son our fam­i­lies, kill our loved ones on the job, and destroy the ecosys­tems we cher­ish. The BP oil spill was unfor­tu­nate­ly just one of an end­less string of dis­as­ters born of an eco­nom­ic sys­tem that must end­less­ly con­sume the Earth’s resources.

Com­mu­ni­ties around the world are under attack from extrac­tive indus­tries that poi­son our fam­i­lies, kill our loved ones on the job, and destroy the ecosys­tems we cher­ish. The BP oil spill was unfor­tu­nate­ly just one of an end­less string of dis­as­ters born of an eco­nom­ic sys­tem that must end­less­ly con­sume the Earth’s resources.

Extrac­tion is the act of tak­ing with­out giv­ing any­thing back. Extrac­tion takes work­ers lives so cor­po­ra­tions can make a few more bucks.
Extrac­tion takes clean water and air and gives us black­ened oceans and a cli­mate in chaos. Extrac­tion takes the nat­ur­al wealth of com­mu­ni­ties and ecosys­tems and leaves behind pover­ty and eco­log­i­cal waste­lands.

For a sta­ble cli­mate, clean air and water, we must stop the extrac­tion of fos­sil fuels and oth­er “resources.” From the tar sands of Alber­ta to the Gulf Coast, peo­ple are fight­ing back against the extrac­tive indus­tries that have declared war on our plan­et. Ris­ing Tide is call­ing for a day of direct action against extrac­tion on the 1 year anniver­sary of the BP oil spill. On April 20th take it to the point of pro­duc­tion.
Shut down a well site, occu­py a mine, take over an office, block­ade a bank. Nobody’s com­mu­ni­ty should be a sac­ri­fice zone. For cli­mate jus­tice and a live­able plan­et.

Ris­ing Tide (North Amer­i­ca)

Resistance to ‘Factory of Death’ continues

On Mon­day sev­er­al actions took place against the gov­ern­men­t’s nuclear weapons and their plans to devel­op new ones. The focus was AWE Alder­mas­ton, the mil­i­tary base near Read­ing where these weapons are devel­oped and main­tained.

On Mon­day sev­er­al actions took place against the gov­ern­men­t’s nuclear weapons and their plans to devel­op new ones. The focus was AWE Alder­mas­ton, the mil­i­tary base near Read­ing where these weapons are devel­oped and main­tained.

Activists from Tri­dent Ploughshares had been hold­ing an “Alder­mas­ton Sum­mer Gath­er­ing” for sev­er­al days shar­ing infor­ma­tion and leaflet­ting near­by vil­lages. Co-incid­ing with this, folks from the Catholic Work­er move­ment were hold­ing a “Faith and Resis­tance” retreat in Oxford cel­e­brat­ing the 30th anniver­sary of the first Ploughshares action.

As the day began around twen­ty TP folks block­ad­ed one of the main gates into the base, includ­ing four who “locked-on” with arm tubes. They left with­out any arrests after suc­cess­ful­ly blockad­ing for two hours.

Soon after­wards, 3 of the Catholic Work­ers cut through the perime­ter fence and broke into the base, “open­ing it for dis­ar­ma­ment”, while oth­ers car­ried out a vig­il at the gates of the base. They were arrest­ed, held until evening, charged with crim­i­nal dam­age, and may also face SOCPA charges.

Crude Awakening info update

12 Sept 2010

THE CRUDE AWAKENING MASS OUTREACH EMAIL

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

12 Sept 2010

THE CRUDE AWAKENING MASS OUTREACH EMAIL

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

Have you been think­ing it’s about time a whole load of peo­ple got togeth­er to take mass action against oil in cen­tral Lon­don? We thought so. And so it fol­lowed that the Crude Awak­en­ing was launched. The mobi­liza­tion is now in full swing and every­one is invit­ed to help pub­li­cize and pre­pare. There is loads to do….please have a read through this email and get involved!

The email is in three parts:

Upcom­ing events and how to get involved
Fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions
The call out — please copy and paste and help this get all over the Inter­net!

1. How to get involved and build up events you are all invit­ed to.

Events already planned are list­ed bel­low:

In Lon­don……

17th Sep­tem­ber, net­work­ing meet­ing at 6pm just inside the entrance to the Brunei Gallery at SOAS, a meet­ing for peo­ple inter­est­ed in help­ing to do out­reach in the Lon­don area the Cli­mate Camp out­reach group are meet­ing.

There is going to be a Lon­don coor­di­nat­ing and plan­ning meet­ing for the Crude Awak­en­ing very soon, and the details will be announced short­ly.

Thurs­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber at 7.30pm, Cli­mate Action Film Night, Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre, Whitechapel (for address see www.londonarc.org)

An evening of films and dis­cus­sion about cli­mate activism and the oil indus­try, host­ed by Lon­don Ris­ing Tide.

A screen­ing of two short films of recent actions against BP and Shell by Ris­ing Tide and friends, plus Petrop­o­lis, a visu­al­ly stun­ning and dis­turb­ing doc­u­men­tary about the Cana­di­an Tar Sands. Fol­lowed by a brain­storm­ing ses­sion on tak­ing direct action against the oil indus­try in Lon­don — includ­ing all the lat­est info on the Crude Awak­en­ing, an oily mass action hap­pen­ing on Sat­ur­day 16th Octo­ber. For any­one who believes in cli­mate jus­tice and wants to help make it hap­pen; any­one hacked off with the greed and irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty of oil giants like BP; any­one back from the Cli­mate Camp and look­ing to get involved local­ly… every­one welcome.…and there’ll be cake!

The Crude Awak­en­ing Lon­don Rab­ble Rouser – a mass out­door team game, warm­ing us up for the big day– date, place and time to be announced.

Sat­ur­day 2nd Octo­ber. MOLASAPULTPARTY FUNDRAISER .… Venue TBC, more details to fol­low short­ly

Sat­ur­day the 2nd and Sun­day the 3rd Octo­ber Stilt mak­ing work­shop for the stilt block on the mass action!.…
This time we’re think­ing big, we’re think­ing high, we’re think­ing tall.… and we’re going as a Stilt Bloc.

Yep, thats right! On stilts!

So in order for this to hap­pen we’re hav­ing a skill share week­end in Lon­don to build stilts and learn how to walk on them. The week­end is Sat 2nd and Sun 3rd Octo­ber, 10am to 6pm.

And even if you don’t want to be up high, each stilt walk­er will need a bud­dy stay­ing on the ground so there’s a place for every­one, young and old, big or small, high or low.….. we need you at this week­end too!!!

Its all free and lunch is includ­ed.…

We need RSVPs so we know num­bers. Email: stilt.bloc@gmail.com

Oh and its MEXICAN DAY OF THE DEAD theme.….

In Man­ches­ter….

Sat 9th Oct — Mass Action train­ing

Tue 12th Oct — Pub­licly announced rouser for CJA inter­na­tion­al day of action

Crude Awak­en­ing mobil­i­sa­tion

We hope that there will be loads more to fol­low but this is what is lined up so far. If you are plan­ning a build up event let us know so we can adver­tise it please.

There is a huge amount to do to mobi­lize quick­ly for an event this big. Maybe you could organ­ise a film show­ing or talk (we can prob­a­bly send a speak­er if you email us). You could put on an affin­i­ty group or action train­ing work­shop, or host a fundrais­er. You could book a coach and fill it. You could run a work­shop so peo­ple can build prac­ti­cal stuff , for exam­ple a load of dis­pos­able bikes to bring along (email us to let us know if you do make lots of use­ful stuff). You could have a stall and hand out fly­ers at your fresh­ers fair (again email for mate­ri­als). You could make a sten­cil and graf­fi­ti adver­tise for it all across your city/ region. Unless every­one gets involved there is a real dan­ger we won’t get the num­bers we need.
The Crude Awak­en­ing is now on crab­grass! Join it, join a work­ing group and lets get plan­ning! https://we.riseup.net/thecrudeawakening (crab­grass is a lit­tle bit like face­book for activists and is a way of organ­is­ing on line). And sign up for more infor­ma­tion by email and text alerts on the web­site. www.crudeawakening.org.uk. Our face­book page is a lit­tle slow to get off the ground but it will soon be buzzing.

Please also raise The Crude Awak­en­ing as an agen­da point at the next organ­is­ing meet­ing at your Social Centre/ Friends of the Earth Group/ Union/ Cli­mate Camp neighbourhood/ Hous­ing Coop etc. Get peo­ple talk­ing and excit­ed and com­mit­ted to the idea that they are going! If you are not already in a group or affin­i­ty group you are of course still total­ly wel­come. You will prob­a­bly want to make con­tact with some like mind­ed folk to talk things through and make some plans before the big day. For exam­ple you could go to climatecamp.org.uk or risingtide.org.uk and find your local active group, or email us and we can try to sign­post you on. At the least try to get a cou­ple of mates to come with you, so that you have some sup­port as a group of friends (known by activists as an affin­i­ty group).

2. Fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions

Q. Nei­ther the web­site nor the fly­er gives much info. What is going on?

A. As you have prob­a­bly twigged there is also a delib­er­ate sense of mys­tery around the action. So often with recent mass actions we have said exact­ly where we are going to go, and the police have had as much time to pre­pare as us, mak­ing things much more dif­fi­cult for peo­ple who want to be involved in mass and effec­tive direct action . With this project we are exper­i­ment­ing a lit­tle bit. The 10 tar­gets are left unspec­i­fied, giv­ing the action more chance of being suc­cess­ful. But at the same time we can open­ly adver­tise that we all need to be in Cen­tral Lon­don so we can get loads of peo­ple togeth­er at the same place at the same time for the mass action. And those peo­ple need to be ready to take action and to have fun. This is not a march and it’s not a camp. This is an action that needs prepa­ra­tion and we can all be involved in most of that preparation….although the tar­gets will be a sur­prise until much lat­er.

We can’t be sure that this mix of secret and pub­lic plan­ning will work, but we can give it a go, have some fun and maybe make some progress…..but maybe, just maybe we have got it total­ly nailed and this will be the best mass action in Lon­don ever! If you don’t show up there it will be dif­fi­cult for you to know. Our advice is don’t miss it 😉

Q. So what do I need to do to pre­pare?

A. Peo­ple need to be ready to move, and to stand their ground. Don’t bring with you any­thing that you can’t eas­i­ly walk with or get on a tube with. But do bring with you stuff that will help you and your affin­i­ty group hold a space in what ever way you feel you want to. Whether you want to bring arm­tubes, dis­pos­able bikes or a huge slow mov­ing met­al and wood­en tow­er with a papi­er-mâché rhi­no head (that can fit on and off a tube!?); diver­si­ty of tac­tics and affin­i­ty group plan­ning are key to this work­ing. Peo­ple can also pre­pare stuff to make this action look beau­ti­ful; pup­pets, masks, ban­ners, a portable molasses fondue……you get the idea.

Q. Why Oil?

A. For a whole host of rea­sons. Here are just a few…..
Because oil com­pa­nies search for new oil reserves to make them­selves rich­er while our cli­mate spins into cri­sis.
Because the UK gov­ern­ment starts wars for oil.
Because of human rights abus­es and mur­der in West Africa.
Because of the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon spill.
Because of the destruc­tion of wilder­ness in the Arc­tic and the coast of Rosport in Ire­land.
Because of UK pub­lic mon­ey being used by bailed out banks to fund new oil projects.
Because Lon­don is brim­ming with oil mon­ey, oil spon­sor­ship and oil com­pa­nies.
Because glob­al ener­gy resources are the peo­ples com­mons.
Because oil com­pa­nies and the filthy rich peo­ple who prof­it from them have no place in a sus­tain­able future.
Because Copen­hagen failed and now it’s down to us.
Because oil has had it’s day and it’s time we pulled the plug.

Hope that that made things a lit­tle clear­er. And more spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion will be sent out soon. If you are still strug­gling with the idea, it is a bit like the Great Cli­mate Swoop of 2009, except where we are going is kept secret. Remem­ber, you are being asked to come and move around Lon­don, so stay mobile, be cre­ative, be prepat­ed and be ready to stand your ground. So talk in your affin­i­ty group about the ways in which you are going to be able to hold a space and equip­ment and mate­ri­als that you might want to bring along to help you. The action is open, and will be shaped by the peo­ple who are there. Only the tar­gets and how we are get­ting to them are secret.

3. The call out – please copy and paste and help get this all over the Inter­net!

THE CRUDE AWAKENING

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

Floods in Pak­istan, drought in Rus­sia, huge glac­i­ers break­ing up in Green­land…

Our cli­mate sys­tem is rapid­ly slid­ing into cri­sis, as oil com­pa­nies destroy peo­ple’s lives and the envi­ron­ment to keep suck­ing up their prof­its.

Oil sat­u­rates every aspect of our lives. Oil prof­its lubri­cate the finan­cial mar­kets and its spon­sor­ship clings like a bad smell to our cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions. It flows through pipelines to the pumps, air­ports and fac­to­ries of our cities.

The fail­ure of the UN COP15 process showed us – if there was ever any doubt – that gov­ern­ment and indus­try can’t tack­le cli­mate change. It’s up to us and it’s time to up the ante.

As a move­ment, our actions against coal and avi­a­tion have made a real dif­fer­ence. Now oil’s time is up.

Togeth­er, on Octo­ber 16, let’s give the oil indus­try a Crude Awak­en­ing.

Meet in cen­tral Lon­don. Be ready to move. Be ready to stay and stand your ground.

Be cre­ative. Be pre­pared. Be there.

Find out more, get involved and sign up for text alerts at www.crudeawakening.org.uk
Face­book: http://bit.ly/c6S0kg
Twit­ter: @crudeawake

Part of the CJA glob­al week of action for cli­mate jus­tice
Sup­port­ed by: Space Hijack­ers, Cli­mate Camp, Plane Stu­pid, Ris­ing Tide, Lib­er­ate Tate, Lab­o­ra­to­ry of Insur­rec­tionary Imag­i­na­tion, UK Tar Sands Net­work

Hope to see you on the streets,
Crude Awak­en­ing
crudeawakening.org.uk

Stop Nuclear Power gathering, 23–24 October 2010

Sat 23 — Sun 24 Oct 2010, Bris­tol

Meet, make plans, take action

Sat 23 — Sun 24 Oct 2010, Bris­tol

Meet, make plans, take action

Stop Nuclear Pow­er is a grass­roots net­work of groups and indi­vid­u­als tak­ing action against nuclear pow­er. If EdF get their way, Hink­ley C will become the first nuclear pow­er sta­tion built in Britain for 20 years and will sit next to two oth­er radioac­tive and dan­ger­ous sites. Stop Hink­ley is a long run­ning com­mu­ni­ty cam­paign to stop dead­ly nuclear reac­tors oper­at­ing near their homes.
Their strug­gle is our strug­gle. Let’s sit down togeth­er in Bris­tol and make some plans togeth­er.

Hink­ley is the bat­tle­ground, if they get one in there, it opens the door for at least nine oth­er nuclear pow­er sta­tions across the coun­try. This Autumn, the gov­ern­ment is tak­ing its pro-nuclear pro­pa­gan­da on tour around the UK. We’ll be there. Come to the gath­er­ing or send us an email to find out how you can get involved.

www.boycottedf.org.uk

Info for the week­end:

Meet­ing space dur­ing the day on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day tbc but will be in Bris­tol.
Crash space is avail­able on a dry, warm and qui­et floor space.
If you need a bed please get in con­tact with us as soon as pos­si­ble and will try and help you out.
Lunch and din­ner will be done com­mu­nal­ly on Sat­ur­day and lunch on Sun­day.

For a tele­phone num­ber to con­tact dur­ing the week­end send us an email.

Please help by let­ting us know you are com­ing so we can plan for space, food and logis­tics.

Email: nonewnuclear@aktivix.org

Trashing, dashing, bashing, mashing: the new EF! Action Update

So what have you been up to the last few months? Just hang­ing around?
Maybe you’ve been part of human wheel-clamp­ing aero­planes, climb­ing up scaf­fold­ing tripods incon­ve­nient­ly placed in the road, smash­ing machines at open-cast mines, play­ing nuked-dead in the street, kayak­ing against bore­hole drill rigs in Ire­land, burn­ing mobile phone masts, resist­ing Tesco, camp­ing against trash­ing of wood­land, with some suc­cess at Tit­nore (& oth­er protest camp updates), or get­ting in on BP’s act, spilling oil in pub­lic places.

Or have you been on hol­i­day, tak­ing part in indige­nous block­ades against log­ging, dams and min­ing, spilunk­ing against high speed trains, slash­ing tuna cages, blockad­ing Mon­san­to HQ, trash­ing GM fields, and more?

So what have you been up to the last few months? Just hang­ing around?
Maybe you’ve been part of human wheel-clamp­ing aero­planes, climb­ing up scaf­fold­ing tripods incon­ve­nient­ly placed in the road, smash­ing machines at open-cast mines, play­ing nuked-dead in the street, kayak­ing against bore­hole drill rigs in Ire­land, burn­ing mobile phone masts, resist­ing Tesco, camp­ing against trash­ing of wood­land, with some suc­cess at Tit­nore (& oth­er protest camp updates), or get­ting in on BP’s act, spilling oil in pub­lic places.

Or have you been on hol­i­day, tak­ing part in indige­nous block­ades against log­ging, dams and min­ing, spilunk­ing against high speed trains, slash­ing tuna cages, blockad­ing Mon­san­to HQ, trash­ing GM fields, and more?

Maybe you’re in need of a break. But if you’re not, and are just champ­ing at the bit, the return of AUn­tie MIffy’s prob­lem page might help, address­ing what to do if there’s no local group near you. There’s an arti­cle about the begin­nings of EF! in this coun­try, look­ing for­wards to the next 20 years, to help inspire. If you need sup­port to get things going where you live, do get in touch. And if all that’s not enough, here’s a quo­ta­tion, from Paul Wat­son, the Sea Shep­herd cap­tain:

“Future gen­er­a­tions will not have the chance and those that came before us did not have the vision nor the knowl­edge. It is up to us — you and I.”

Print ver­sion
Oth­er issues and extra info

Earth First! Summer Gathering set-up plans announced

We can now announce that set-up will begin from around 2pm on Sat­ur­day, 31 July. Mar­quees, tools and con­struc­tion mate­ri­als will be arriv­ing on site from Sat­ur­day morn­ing so there will be plen­ty to do. You will be able to camp on the site from Sat­ur­day and there will be skele­ton facil­i­ties (water, basic kitchen) from that time.

We can now announce that set-up will begin from around 2pm on Sat­ur­day, 31 July. Mar­quees, tools and con­struc­tion mate­ri­als will be arriv­ing on site from Sat­ur­day morn­ing so there will be plen­ty to do. You will be able to camp on the site from Sat­ur­day and there will be skele­ton facil­i­ties (water, basic kitchen) from that time.

We also have a mobile num­ber for set­up which is 07766 947852. This will be on-site from Sat­ur­day lunchtime, and may well get answered in the few days before­hand but please don’t try ring­ing until then — e‑mail will remain the main con­tact point until near­er the time — sum­mer­gath­er­ing -{at}- earthfirst.org.uk

What we need to know:

*Please can you let us know when you are com­ing? — this helps us plan foods, facil­i­ties and what jobs to do when.

*It is also help­ful if you can let us know if you have any par­tic­u­lar skills or inter­ests with respect to set-up — we might need dri­vers, so if you are over 25, hold a clean licence, are con­fi­dent dri­ving a 3.5 tonne Luton AND can bring along both parts of your dri­ving licence please let us know.

*Sim­i­lar­ly if you are arriv­ing in a vehi­cle and could poten­tial­ly pro­vide lifts, trans­port equip­ment en route or run errands from site once you arrive please let us know. In this case it is very help­ful if you are able/willing to sup­ply us with a con­tact phone num­ber.

How to get there

As you maybe aware that we do not announce the exact site of the gath­er­ing until one week before the main event, this means direc­tions will be avail­able on the web­site http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/ from Wednes­day, 27 July. We realise this will be short notice for peo­ple arriv­ing on the Sat­ur­day, how­ev­er to make things eas­i­er we will e‑mail direc­tions to set-up crew on that day (that still 4 days to check a map!).

The near­est train sta­tion is Der­by if you want to pre-book train tick­ets, you will also need to take a local bus ser­vice from Der­by (these are fre­quent). We are aim­ing to have a vehi­cle on site that can assist if peo­ple have dif­fi­cul­ties between Der­by and the site, so hope­ful­ly every­one will be able to get there okay.

There may be a very small num­ber of lifts avail­able from the Not­ting­ham area across the week­end of Sat­ur­day 31st July/Sunday first of August. There may also be lifts from the Leeds area first thing on 31 July. Let us know if this may be of inter­est to you.

What to bring

*Every­thing you need to the gath­er­ing, tent sleep­ing bags etc. and espe­cial­ly a torch

*It may be wise to come a bit more self-suf­fi­cient in food and snacks than you would need to for the main gath­er­ing — we will have a basic kitchen but Veg­gies and the tuck shop are not arriv­ing until Wednes­day

*If you are able to bring any tools, espe­cial­ly for basic car­pen­try, these are often use­ful

Big thanks for offer­ing to help out

Do get in touch if you have any ques­tions

Love & rage

The EF! Gath­er­ing crew

Lewes Road community garden opposes Tesco — update

Fol­low­ing a sym­pa­thet­ic court hear­ing against devel­op­ers Alburn Minos Ltd and Tesco on July 9 Lewes Road Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den sup­port­ers are more deter­mined than ever to stay put on one of Brighton’s busiest and most pol­lut­ed roads. The gar­den is OPEN!

Lewes Road community gardenFol­low­ing a sym­pa­thet­ic court hear­ing against devel­op­ers Alburn Minos Ltd and Tesco on July 9 Lewes Road Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den sup­port­ers are more deter­mined than ever to stay put on one of Brighton’s busiest and most pol­lut­ed roads. The gar­den is OPEN!

Alburn Minos Ltd and Tesco failed in their attempts to get £3,500 costs award­ed against two named indi­vid­u­als who have had to dis­as­so­ci­ate them­selves from the gar­den because of the legal har­rass­ment and bul­ly-boy tac­tics typ­i­cal of cor­po­ra­tions in cas­es rang­ing from ani­mal rights activists to McLi­bel.

Judge Coltart said the costs claim was not pro­por­tion­ate and award­ed the devel­op­ers £500 which was raised two days after thanks to ever grow­ing pub­lic sup­port now that Tesco is known to be involved. One anony­mous donor gave £200 at a gar­den Eco- Fayre (July 11) and num­bers sign­ing the Save LRCG peti­tion are run­ning at 40 a day.

The next step? Gar­den­ers, near­by res­i­dents and the wider com­mu­ni­ty are con­tin­u­ing to bring water and plants to the site. Art stu­dents have installed a tree sculp­ture while long time gar­den sup­port­ers are return­ing now that it is clear Tesco ain’t gonna have it their own way.

An evic­tion order is expect­ed soon with a sec­ond attempt by the devel­op­ers to take the land.

On Fri­day July 23 a ben­e­fit gig is being held at Hec­tors House pub in Grand Parade fea­tur­ing punk swing out­fit Flat Stan­ley, Ade Sings Rossel­songs and DJ Gene Defekt. £4 on the door with all the mon­ey going to a gar­den fight­ing fund.

Lewes Road Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den was set up in May 2009 by a group from the local com­mu­ni­ty. It has pro­vid­ed a meet­ing space and green haven ever since, enjoyed by thou­sands of peo­ple, pro­vid­ing a venue for com­mu­ni­ty events and bring­ing togeth­er local res­i­dents many of whom don’t have gar­dens them­selves. There is a food waste com­post scheme, and reg­u­lar events with close to 5,000 peo­ple have signed a peti­tion of sup­port for the gar­den and against Tesco, a bet­ting shop and 7 flats planned.

The devel­op­ers are:

Alburn Minos Ltd, C/O King Loose St Johns House, 5 South Parade, Som­mer­town, Oxford, OX2 7JL

Simon Tam­plin
Tau­re­an Man­age­ment Ser­vices Ltd
Green Leaves, West­er­ham Road, Keston, KENT UNITED KINGDOM

Gilbert-Ash, Emp­son Road, Fen­gate, Peterborough,Cambridgeshire, PE1 5UP Tel: 01733 552091Fax: 01733 311355

Tesco boss: terry.leahy@uk.tesco.com
Tesco head of media: jonathan.church@uk.tesco.com

Gar­dens by the Com­mu­ni­ty For the com­mu­ni­ty!

Stop Tesco!

summer camps in the UK & Merthyr coal train action sentencing — solidarity demo

The next month and a half are busy times if you like camp­ing and pol­i­tics! Peace News, EF! gath­er­ing, Welsh & UK cli­mate camps.…

Climate Camp Cymru 2010 logoThe next month and a half are busy times if you like camp­ing and pol­i­tics! Peace News, EF! gath­er­ing, Welsh & UK cli­mate camps.…

The Peace News Sum­mer Camp is almost upon us in sun­ny Oxford­shire, “an inclu­sive, demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly-run five-day expe­ri­ence-in-minia­ture of the kind of world we are try­ing to bring about”. This year, fem­i­nism joins our stand­ing themes of peace and jus­tice.
http://peacenewscamp.info/

The EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing is of course in ear­ly August in the beau­ti­ful Peak Dis­trict. “5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low- impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers. Meet and share skills with oth­ers who care. Plan actions and cam­paigns. Have fun. We’ve got over 80 work­shops, plan­ning, strat­e­gy and ‘Where Next’ ses­sions planned, get in touch if you want to offer a work­shop! ”
A tonne of var­ied and amaz­ing work­shops and train­ing ses­sions, full details at http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/2010/front.html

And the Welsh Cli­mate Camp is in mid-August (see call­out below), “a basic ‘lite’ action-focused camp in South Wales; with its atten­tion fixed firm­ly on coal. This will be linked to a sis­ter-site /in­fo-shop in Cardiff which will act as a point of con­tact before and dur­ing the camp. Work­shops will be most­ly lim­it­ed to action-based train­ing and infor­ma­tion although there will be space to hear from com­mu­ni­ty cam­paigns and open dis­cus­sion forums through­out the camp.”
http://climatecampcymru.org/?page_id=1000

The UK Camp for Cli­mate Action is head­ing north to Edin­burgh at the end of August, “Our sus­tain­able and col­lec­tive­ly organ­ised base­camp will give you the chance to learn, train up, and meet like mind­ed indi­vid­u­als. Excit­ing action plans are cur­rent­ly in the plot­ting stages, so watch this space.”
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/actions/edinburgh-2010

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Open cast is trash­ing the south Wales land­scape
It’s time to take action
Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru
13 – 17 August

A momen­tum is build­ing. Last year we camped next to Ffos y Fran — one of the largest open­cast mines in Europe — for a week of work­shops and sus­tain­able liv­ing. This sum­mer we’re going back to basics with a light action-based camp, tar­get­ing coal some­where in south Wales.

Our cur­rent eco­nom­ic sys­tem is based on an addic­tion to fos­sil fuels and on max­imis­ing prof­it at the expense of peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment. Fos­sil fuel cor­po­ra­tions can­not be allowed to progress unchecked. We need green jobs for Wales, not dirty destruc­tion.

On the 13th we’ll meet in Cardiff and make our way from there to the site.
Things to bring:

> Tent
> Sleep­ing bag
> Warm clothes and water­proofs
> Plate, bowl, mug and cut­lery
> and a bike could be use­ful too

Burn­ing coal is destroy­ing our cli­mate, while open­cast min­ing dam­ages the earth and the health of local peo­ple. We must leave it in the ground.

Join a grow­ing num­ber of ordi­nary peo­ple tak­ing direct action, and explor­ing alter­na­tives, to stop the mad­ness that is destroy­ing the earth. This August 13th ‑17th come to Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru.

www.climatecampcymru.org
info@climatecampcymru.org
07040 909 147

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Head­ing to Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru on August 13th? 13 peo­ple who block­ad­ed the rail­way at Ffos y Fran open­cast mine in April are being sen­tenced at Merthyr Crown Court that day at 2pm. Why not drop by around 1pm for a sol­i­dar­i­ty demo.

Lewes Road Community Garden V Tesco, Brighton

Gar­den­ers and res­i­dents on Brighton’s Lewes Road Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den face the bailiffs in the next few days. THE GARDEN IS OPEN despite sub-con­trac­tors Ter­rins lock­ing up the front gates today (June 30).
More bod­ies the bet­ter over next few days. Gar­dens By The Com­mu­ni­ty For The Com­mu­ni­ty — Fuck the Cor­po­rates…

Lewes Road V TescoGar­den­ers and res­i­dents on Brighton’s Lewes Road Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den face the bailiffs in the next few days. THE GARDEN IS OPEN despite sub-con­trac­tors Ter­rins lock­ing up the front gates today (June 30).
More bod­ies the bet­ter over next few days. Gar­dens By The Com­mu­ni­ty For The Com­mu­ni­ty — Fuck the Cor­po­rates…

On Mon­day (June 26) 200+ peo­ple protest­ed out­side the site after the gates were locked by the gar­den­ers to com­ply with a court pos­ses­sion order. This was done to keep a com­mu­ni­ty activist from cough­ing up £7,000 in costs.

A day lat­er the gar­den had been re-occu­pied and opened up. It is cur­rent­ly open hav­ing been cleaned up and watered. Main con­trac­tors Gilbert-Ash are expect­ed on Thurs­day July 1 with sub-con­trac­tors Ter­rins sched­uled to clear the site and put up hoard­ings on either Fri­day or Mon­day.

Mean­while a legal and plan­ning bat­tle con­tin­ues over lack of con­sul­ta­tion and flawed plan­ning process involv­ing Brighton Coun­cil, main devel­op­ers Alburn Minos Ltd and Tesco.

Since May 2009, when gueril­la gar­den­ers took over a derelict Esso garage, the Lewes Road Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den has pro­vid­ed a meet­ing space and green haven along the busy, traf­fic-clogged Lewes Road. It has been enjoyed by thou­sands of peo­ple, pro­vid­ing a venue for com­mu­ni­ty events and bring­ing togeth­er local res­i­dents many of whom don’t have gar­dens them­selves. There is a food waste com­post scheme, veg­etable grow­ing and Fairlight school-kids have their own ‘pot up a plant’ project.

Titnore developers back down — protest cancelled, meeting & walk

MORE good news in the bat­tle to Save Tit­nore Woods!

The would-be devel­op­ers have now announced they will NOT be appeal­ing against the his­toric refusal of their plans for 875 homes by Wor­thing coun­cil back in March.

Below is the Argus report.

MORE good news in the bat­tle to Save Tit­nore Woods!

The would-be devel­op­ers have now announced they will NOT be appeal­ing against the his­toric refusal of their plans for 875 homes by Wor­thing coun­cil back in March.

Below is the Argus report.

So is this it? Are Tit­nore Woods saved? Where next for the cam­paign and the camp? This will be the time­ly top­ic of dis­cus­sion at the next Wor­thing Alliance meet­ing, which is on Thurs­day June 24, 8pm, at The Jol­ly Brew­ers in Clifton Road, Wor­thing – not far from the main sta­tion.

As ever, all are wel­come!

Deci­sion on Tit­nore plans will not be appealed
Devel­op­ers will not appeal against a deci­sion to reject plans to build 875 homes which would have seen the destruc­tion of ancient wood­land.

Wor­thing Bor­ough Coun­cil reject­ed pro­pos­als for a devel­op­ment at Tit­nore Woods, near Wor­thing, in March, because of its impact on wildlife.

Yes­ter­day the West Dur­ring­ton Con­sor­tium said it would not appeal and would now be look­ing at alter­na­tive plans on the out­skirts of Wor­thing.

Pro­test­ers set up camp in the tree­tops in Tit­nore Wood in May 2006.

The con­sor­tium first sub­mit­ted pro­pos­als in 2003 which includ­ed the straight­en­ing of Tit­nore Lane, with the loss of 275 trees.
They were lat­er changed to save 200 exist­ing trees, with 2,350 more being plant­ed across the site.
Speed man­age­ment mea­sures were also pro­posed rather than the straight­en­ing of Tit­nore Lane, with 20mph lim­its in the hous­ing areas.

But coun­cil­lors still feared the plans would cause unac­cept­able dam­age to ancient wood­land and overde­vel­op the site.

Yes­ter­day the con­sor­tium said it was work­ing on new pro­pos­als but would not appeal the council’s deci­sion.
It stat­ed: “We will not appeal against Wor­thing Coun­cil’s deci­sion to refuse plan­ning per­mis­sion for 875 homes.
“In a pos­i­tive response to the terms of this deci­sion the con­sor­tium has now elect­ed to progress alter­na­tive pro­pos­als over com­ing months which will very clear­ly exclude any pro­posed devel­op­ment of the west­ern area and any direct access to Tit­nore Lane.”
Coun­cil leader Paul Yal­lop said future devel­op­ment of the area was “up in the air” fol­low­ing a change in Gov­ern­ment.

The Con­ser­v­a­tives had pledged, pri­or to the gen­er­al elec­tion, to scrap hous­ing tar­gets which had meant 1,000 hous­es might still have to be built in West Dur­ring­ton.

Coun Yal­lop said: “I am pleased to hear that the con­sor­tium is not appeal­ing.
“I am not sure where it is going to go from here because the Gov­ern­ment is scrap­ping tar­gets.
“It is dif­fi­cult to say what will hap­pen. We do have long wait­ing lists for hous­ing, but until it is a bit clear­er where Gov­ern­ment leg­is­la­tion is going I think it’s all up in the air.”

http://www.eco-action.org/porkbolter

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Tit­nore vic­to­ry means protest is off

THE Tit­nore on Tour cam­paign has achieved its aim of per­suad­ing the would-be devel­op­ers at Dur­ring­ton, West Sus­sex, not to appeal against the sur­prise coun­cil refusal of their plans.

And it only took one vis­it!

Because of this vic­to­ry the planned protest on Sat­ur­day June 26 out­side devel­op­er Per­sim­mon Homes’ region­al HQ in Fare­ham has been can­celled.

Please spread the word to any­one who might have been plan­ning to come.

We are not com­pla­cent and know there is still a threat to local green space, though it appears the wood­land may now be safe.

A spe­cial meet­ing is being held at 8pm on Thurs­day June 24 at The Jol­ly Brew­ers pub in Clifton Road, Wor­thing (not far from main sta­tion) to dis­cuss where the Tit­nore cam­paign goes next.

Any­one who cares about Tit­nore Woods is encour­aged to come along and have their say.

Mean­while, Sus­sex coun­try­side lovers are urged to sup­port new pres­sure group Wor­thing Down­lan­ders’ Mid­sum­mer cir­cu­lar walk from High­down to Patch­ing Hill on Sun­day June 20 with local his­to­ri­an Chris.

Meet High­down car park, up the hill from Gor­ing by Sea rail sta­tion, at 11am to return 3pm to 4pm. Pub lunch or pic­nic en route. Sug­gest­ed dona­tion £3. www.worthingdownlanders.org.uk

http://www.eco-action.org/porkbolter/Titnoretour.html