Category: South East England

South East Eng­land

Radley Lakes: Join the protest march on legs and cycles on 10 March

Join a Cycle Ride and March to Say No to NPow­er’s “Crim­i­nal Dam­age” to Radley Lakes on Sat­ur­day 10 March

Repost from Live Jour­nal:

You are invit­ed to join cyclists from across Oxford­shire in a bicy­cle ride in sup­port of the cam­paign to “Save Radley Lakes” next Sat­ur­day. Cyclists in Oxford are invit­ed to con­gre­gate in Broad Street, Oxford City (OX1 3AS) out­side the Oxford Cam­pus Store, at 12.45pm on Sat­ur­day 10th March, 2007, while walk­ers from Abing­don and Did­cot are invit­ed to con­gre­gate at 1.10pm in Abbey Mead­ow (OX14 3JE) in Abing­don to hear speak­ers, then walk to Thrupp Lake. The cyclists will pro­ceed toward Radley Lakes, with bells, whis­tles and ban­ners, coin­cid­ing with a march by Save Radley Lakes the same day at Thrupp Lake at 1.55pm.

Join a Cycle Ride and March to Say No to NPow­er’s “Crim­i­nal Dam­age” to Radley Lakes on Sat­ur­day 10 March

Repost from Live Jour­nal:

You are invit­ed to join cyclists from across Oxford­shire in a bicy­cle ride in sup­port of the cam­paign to “Save Radley Lakes” next Sat­ur­day. Cyclists in Oxford are invit­ed to con­gre­gate in Broad Street, Oxford City (OX1 3AS) out­side the Oxford Cam­pus Store, at 12.45pm on Sat­ur­day 10th March, 2007, while walk­ers from Abing­don and Did­cot are invit­ed to con­gre­gate at 1.10pm in Abbey Mead­ow (OX14 3JE) in Abing­don to hear speak­ers, then walk to Thrupp Lake. The cyclists will pro­ceed toward Radley Lakes, with bells, whis­tles and ban­ners, coin­cid­ing with a march by Save Radley Lakes the same day at Thrupp Lake at 1.55pm.

Every­one is wel­come to join the cycle ride as a planned show of sup­port for the cam­paign, and the ride will end at the lakes. Bring bells, whis­tles and ban­ners if you can.

The ride will take place at a leisure­ly pace. Radley Lakes have been used by Oxo­ni­ans for over 30 years as a leisure site to walk, cycle and enjoy the envi­ron­ment. Npow­er has filled all the lakes east of the rail­way with ash, and now it wants to destroy the remain­der in the same way, com­plete­ly destroy­ing habi­tat for many species of birds, fish, ani­mal, and plant. News of the cycle ride is being broad­cast to Cyclox, Crit­i­cal Mass, Sus­trans, CTC, and of course Save Radley Lakes. Cyclists are angry that the Npow­er’s dam­age to the lakes will also ruin the beau­ti­ful views of the lake envi­ron­ment on the Sus­trans cycle route than runs between two of the lakes, and there are reports that Npow­er’s site work­ers are already tak­ing lib­er­ties with the cyclists “right of way” block­ing the path to cyclists.

An expe­ri­enced cyclist will lead the ride along an offi­cial cycle route from Oxford to Thrupp Lake (dis­tance 5 miles). Feel free to for­ward this mes­sage to peo­ple or groups who you think might be inter­est­ed, or email jon.rees@gmail.com Please send me an SMS on 07970 893371 if you intend to join us.

See you Sat­ur­day

Route: http://www.sustrans.org.uk/webfiles/leaflets/Hanson%20Way.pdf

documentary: Reclaim Power — voices from the camp for climate action 2006

In the sum­mer of 2006, 600 peo­ple con­vinced that there is no time to waste set up a Camp for Cli­mate Action in the shad­ow of one of the biggest C02 emit­ters in Europe: Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in York­shire / UK. Cine Rebelde pro­duced a doc­u­men­tary film about the camp.

Cli­mate change is now a real­i­ty. Lead­ing sci­en­tists across the world agree that in a ’busi­ness as usu­al sce­nario’ we have no longer than 10 years to pre­vent 2–3 degrees of addi­tion­al glob­al arm­ing that will lead to irre­versible cli­mat­ic changes with dra­mat­ic con­se­quences for our plan­et.

Climate camp view from gateIn the sum­mer of 2006, 600 peo­ple con­vinced that there is no time to waste set up a Camp for Cli­mate Action in the shad­ow of one of the biggest C02 emit­ters in Europe: Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in York­shire / UK. Cine Rebelde pro­duced a doc­u­men­tary film about the camp.

Cli­mate change is now a real­i­ty. Lead­ing sci­en­tists across the world agree that in a ’busi­ness as usu­al sce­nario’ we have no longer than 10 years to pre­vent 2–3 degrees of addi­tion­al glob­al arm­ing that will lead to irre­versible cli­mat­ic changes with dra­mat­ic con­se­quences for our plan­et.

How­ev­er, in a world dri­ven by prof­it and com­mit­ted to unlim­it­ed eco­nom­ic growth, human­i­ty seems very unwill­ing to change the course of the fos­sil fuel econ­o­my.

In the sum­mer of 2006, the 5th hottest year ever record­ed in recent his­to­ry, 600 peo­ple con­vinced that there is no time to waste set up a Camp for Cli­mate Action in the shad­ow of one of the biggest C02 emit­ters in Europe: Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in York­shire / UK.

With over one hun­dred work­shops on a wide range of top­ics, the 10 day camp was a space of col­lec­tive learn­ing, sus­tain­able liv­ing and tak­ing direct action on the root caus­es of cli­mate change. The gath­er­ing that showed prac­ti­cal low ener­gy solu­tions in action, cul­mi­nat­ed in a day of protest and mass direct action in an attempt to shut down Drax.

DVD 62min + extras
Eng­lish with sub­ti­tles in Eng­lish, French, Ger­man and Span­ish
reports on indy­media UK: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2006/climatecamp/

Trail­er down­load: 2:58 min
http://www.cinerebelde.org/site.php3?id_article=356〈=en

a cine rebelde pro­duc­tion in coop­er­a­tion with http://risingtide.org.uk and http://climatecamp.org.uk

indy­media reports of the Camp 2006:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2006/climatecamp/

Pic­tures, infor­ma­tion and film orders:
orders@cinerebelde.org
http://www.cinerebelde.org

DVDs will also soon be avail­able from ris­ing tide, cli­mate camp groups and at the meet­ing in Bris­tol.

* * * * * *
Prepa­ra­tions for the Camp for Cli­mate Action 2007 are in full swing. The upcom­ing meet­ing will be in Bris­tol on March 17th /18th.

Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca is cur­rent­ly doing a Road Show. Check out:
http://risingtidenorthamerica.org

The Campaign Against Prison Slavery

The Cam­paign Against Prison Slav­ery is a group set up to try to expose the real­i­ty of prison labour, how lit­tle of it teach­es skills that can be used after release and which could help reduce the chances of re-offend­ing.

The Cam­paign Against Prison Slav­ery is a group set up to try to expose the real­i­ty of prison labour, how lit­tle of it teach­es skills that can be used after release and which could help reduce the chances of re-offend­ing.

We also seek to expose the pri­vate com­pa­nies that have con­tracts with pris­ons that are mak­ing huge prof­its using pris­on­er labour while the pris­on­ers are paid pen­nies an hour, any los­es incurred by the prison indus­tries con­tracts are cov­ered by the tax pay­er.

CAPS now has a new web­site www.againstprisonslavery.org and the con­tact details are:

Cam­paign Against Prison Slav­ery
P.O. Box 74
Brighton
BN1 4ZQ
E‑mail: againstprisonslavery@riseup.net

SAVE PRIOY PARK : Mass Rally (photos)

26.02.2007

As promised by local cam­paign­ers, and expect­ed by the wider pub­lic, hun­dreds of local peo­ple con­verged upon Southend Civic Cen­tre last Thurs­day for the ‘Parkral­ly’, to oppose con­tro­ver­sial plans to widen the A127/A1159 Pri­o­ry Cres­cent, or ‘scheme F5’ as it has come to be known.

Cops read Bling leaflet
Save Priory Park banner
26.02.2007

As promised by local cam­paign­ers, and expect­ed by the wider pub­lic, hun­dreds of local peo­ple con­verged upon Southend Civic Cen­tre last Thurs­day for the ‘Parkral­ly’, to oppose con­tro­ver­sial plans to widen the A127/A1159 Pri­o­ry Cres­cent, or ‘scheme F5’ as it has come to be known.

The event fol­lows the recent ‘storm­ing’ of the British Archae­o­log­i­cal Awards cel­e­bra­tion at Prit­tlewell Pri­o­ry in Jan­u­ary, when dozens of local res­i­dents dis­rupt­ed an invite only ‘wine and cheese’ event held for local dig­ni­taries, in cel­e­bra­tion of the dis­cov­ery of the East Sax­on king’s bur­ial, which would be destroyed, should the £25m road scheme get the go ahead.

Feel­ings con­tin­ue to run high, with major­i­ty pub­lic oppo­si­tion to the scheme repeat­ed­ly being shown by local groups, and press, six years into the cam­paign to stop the road.

Speak­ing from the steps of the Civic Cen­tre, where a meet­ing of the full Coun­cil was tak­ing place inside, cam­paign­er and local res­i­dent Shaun Qureshi said, ‘Southend Bor­ough Coun­cil are either some­how still igno­rant of the fact that so many peo­ple con­tin­ue to demon­strate, or they are arro­gant enough to feel that they can sim­ply push us aside.

‘They have only time and silence on their side, and the com­mon­ly held mis­con­cep­tion that the scheme has already been canned by the Depart­ment for Trans­port, who would be required to pro­vide the fund­ing. The feel­ing that the scheme will not now go ahead is due to the delay in any­one in author­i­ty either tak­ing any respon­si­bil­i­ty, or com­ing to a deci­sion on the issue.

‘How­ev­er, recent events have proven that despite this, sig­nif­i­cant num­bers of the local pub­lic can still be mobilised to take action, that we do have major­i­ty sup­port, and should the go-ahead be giv­en, that there will be out­rage across the town if attempts are made to evict Camp Bling, con­crete over the bur­ial or to destroy yet anoth­er green space.’

A deci­sion to fund the road widen­ing has been await­ed from the DfT since a local Pub­lic Inquiry took place in March 2004. Infor­ma­tion from the East of Eng­land Region­al Part­ner­ship Group shows that costs have now risen to an esti­mat­ed £25m for the 870 metre length of car­riage­way , mak­ing it poten­tial­ly, ‘The most expen­sive stretch of road in the world.’

http://www.savepriorypark.org

Southend: Hundreds gather to oppose controversial F5 road widening

As promised by local cam­paign­ers, and expect­ed by the wider pub­lic, hun­dreds of local peo­ple con­verged upon Southend Civic Cen­tre this evening for the ‘Parkral­ly’, to oppose con­tro­ver­sial plans to widen the A127/A1159 Pri­o­ry Cres­cent, or ‘scheme F5’ as it has come to be known.
The event fol­lows the recent ‘storm­ing’ of the British Archae­o­log­i­cal Awards cel­e­bra­tion at Prit­tlewell Pri­o­ry in January(1), when dozens of local res­i­dents dis­rupt­ed an invite only ‘wine and cheese’ event held for local dig­ni­taries, in cel­e­bra­tion of the dis­cov­ery of the East Sax­on king’s bur­ial, which would be destroyed, should the £25m road scheme get the go ahead.

As promised by local cam­paign­ers, and expect­ed by the wider pub­lic, hun­dreds of local peo­ple con­verged upon Southend Civic Cen­tre this evening for the ‘Parkral­ly’, to oppose con­tro­ver­sial plans to widen the A127/A1159 Pri­o­ry Cres­cent, or ‘scheme F5’ as it has come to be known.
The event fol­lows the recent ‘storm­ing’ of the British Archae­o­log­i­cal Awards cel­e­bra­tion at Prit­tlewell Pri­o­ry in January(1), when dozens of local res­i­dents dis­rupt­ed an invite only ‘wine and cheese’ event held for local dig­ni­taries, in cel­e­bra­tion of the dis­cov­ery of the East Sax­on king’s bur­ial, which would be destroyed, should the £25m road scheme get the go ahead.

Feel­ings con­tin­ue to run high, with major­i­ty pub­lic oppo­si­tion to the scheme repeat­ed­ly being shown by local groups, and press, six years into the cam­paign to stop the road.
Speak­ing from the steps of the Civic Cen­tre, where a meet­ing of the full Coun­cil was tak­ing place inside, cam­paign­er and local res­i­dent Shaun Qureshi said, ‘Southend Bor­ough Coun­cil are either some­how still igno­rant of the fact that so many peo­ple con­tin­ue to demon­strate, or they are arro­gant enough to feel that they can sim­ply push us aside.
‘They have only time and silence on their side, and the com­mon­ly held mis­con­cep­tion that the scheme has already been canned by the Depart­ment for Trans­port, who would be required to pro­vide the fund­ing. The feel­ing that the scheme will not now go ahead is due to the delay in any­one in author­i­ty either tak­ing any respon­si­bil­i­ty, or com­ing to a deci­sion on the issue.
‘How­ev­er, recent events have proven that despite this, sig­nif­i­cant num­bers of the local pub­lic can still be mobilised to take action, that we do have major­i­ty sup­port, and should the go-ahead be giv­en, that there will be out­rage across the town if attempts are made to evict Camp Bling, con­crete over the bur­ial or to destroy yet anoth­er green space.’(2)
A deci­sion to fund the road widen­ing has been await­ed from the DfT since a local Pub­lic Inquiry took place in March 2004. Infor­ma­tion from the East of Eng­land Region­al Part­ner­ship Group shows that costs have now risen to an esti­mat­ed £25m for the 870 metre length of car­riage­way (3), mak­ing it poten­tial­ly, ‘The most expen­sive stretch of road in the world.’(4)
—————————————————————-
ENDS.

NOTES TO EDITORS:
1 British Archae­o­log­i­cal Awards 2006:
www.britarch.ac.uk/awards/winners2006.html
2 Camp Bling web­site: www.savepriorypark.org
3 East of Eng­land Region­al Part­ner­ship Group region­al fund­ing allo­ca­tions advice to Gov­ern­ment report Jan­u­ary 2006, page 25:
http://www.eera.gov.uk/Documents/About%20EERA/Policy/Regional%20Governance/Regional%20Funding%20Allocations/Final%20EoE%20RFA%20300106.pdf
4 Southend Evening Echo Mon­day 13th Feb­ru­ary 2006

Radley Lakes

The Oxford Mail reports that Antho­ny Bai­ley was arrest­ed for pos­si­ble tres­pass when being evict­ed from a camp where npow­er wish to destroy a wildlife site with sul­phur rich pow­er sta­tion ash. They also report that he has a bro­ken arm.

The Oxford Mail reports that Antho­ny Bai­ley was arrest­ed for pos­si­ble tres­pass when being evict­ed from a camp where npow­er wish to destroy a wildlife site with sul­phur rich pow­er sta­tion ash. They also report that he has a bro­ken arm.
Unre­port­ed are sto­ries that he broke both arms in 2 places and near­ly died in Abing­don police sta­tion. Details not known but appar­ent­ly he was kept in an inter­view room for some 9 hours with noth­ing hap­pen­ing.
Also the police are report­ed­ly guard­ing him in the John Rad­cliffe hos­pi­tal and demand­ing the names of all his vis­i­tors.
The alleged tres­pass was in open/wooded ground near the lakes and not in any pri­vate house or build­ing.

Radley Lake: The destruction begins — updates

15.02.2007

The Oxford Mail report­ed last night that a pro­test­er has been arrest­ed at the Radley Lakes site after work­ers start­ed prepar­ing the area for the con­tro­ver­sial dump­ing of pow­er sta­tion ash.

15.02.2007

The Oxford Mail report­ed last night that a pro­test­er has been arrest­ed at the Radley Lakes site after work­ers start­ed prepar­ing the area for the con­tro­ver­sial dump­ing of pow­er sta­tion ash.

“The Ant” as the man is know, had set up camp out­side the Thrupp Lake. He went into the area owned by RWE npow­er after work­men began clear­ing trees today and was arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass.

http://www.saveradleylakes.org.uk

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Radley Lat­est

17.02.2007
Work has begun in earnest now, with most of the trees on the islands cut down.
NPow­er’s law­ers have also issued an injunc­tion, served on 6 named indi­vid­u­als, plus any­one else they can man­age to serve one on down there, pret­ty much cur­tail­ing most of your civ­il lib­er­ties in that area.
This includes tak­ing phot­graphs of “pro­tect­ed indi­vid­u­als” (guys with chain­saws and secu­ri­ty guards), set­ting up any camp with­in a half mile radius of the lake, car­ry­ing equip­ment that could be used to set up tripods, or spike trees, protest­ing with­in 5 yards of a “pro­tect­ed indi­vid­ual”…
Appar­ent­ly, the secu­ri­ty guards were feel­ing har­rased.
So- care­ful not to breath too heav­i­ly either- you might end up get­ting nicked for that too.
So far 3 peo­ple have been arrest­ed in the lat­est wave of the protest- 1 in breach of the injunc­tion (for dar­ing to take pho­tos on a pub­lic high­way!).
Camps will be demol­ished after 6 hours, and Camp Kylie, pre­vi­ous­ly home to “The Ant” was demol­ished in the wee small hours of the morn­ing (no arrests, as there were no longer any occu­pants, as they’d all been nicked!)

Sug­gest­ed action- go down there, bear wit­ness, and I leave it up to you as to whether or not you take any notice of this injunc­tion.
I did­n’t!

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back­ground & update

RWE NPow­er have gone to great expense to try and gag the local press, TV and
even Radio, to pre­vent the news get­ting out there that they are trash­ing
Thrupp Lake and cut­ting down hun­dreds of trees, caus­ing dis­tress to the
nest­ing birds and caus­ing pain to the local res­i­dents who have made an
appli­ca­tion to have the place classed as a Town Green.

It all start­ed when NPow­er evict­ed a group of peo­ple who decid­ed to occu­py
the house called San­dles which had remained unoc­cu­pied for 18 months. They
went in on the 6th Feb with a team of thug­gish indi­vid­u­als with faces hid by
bal­a­clavas and sledge­ham­mered their way through a plate glass win­dow to gain
access to the house. Two girls sleep­ing next to the win­dow were trau­ma­tised
and lucky not to have been injured by the fly­ing shards of glass.

After they had evict­ed the occu­pants, the secu­ri­ty guards, still with their
bal­a­clavas decid­ed to film any­one and every­one who came near the lakes.
Film­ing vehi­cle reg­is­tra­tion num­bers and eaves­drop­ping on con­ver­sa­tions,
they were car­ry­ing out their patrols with gus­to, dis­turb­ing the wildlife all
through the night dur­ing their reg­u­lar pass­es and being intim­i­dat­ing to
peo­ple who were vis­it­ing the area.

A young man called Ant decid­ed on evic­tion to do a vig­il out­side the house.
First of all for two days he sat on a chair. Then some­one gave him a tent
and brought him some pro­vi­sions. It seemed an act of kind­ness for some­one
who felt that a protest had to be made. How­ev­er, the con­tin­ued stream of
peo­ple who sup­port­ed Ant seemed to aggra­vate the NPOWER GOONS and soon
NPow­er obtained some sort of Court Order to stop any­one camp­ing near their
prop­er­ty, car­ry­ing a rope or spike with­in a mile of the site, pho­tograph­ing
their work­men and secu­ri­ty guards, and demand­ing that the peo­ple against who
the injunc­tion was served should send a copy of the injunc­tion which they
had received to every­one who sup­port­ed the Cam­paign to Save the Lakes.

One of the peo­ple named on the injunc­tion is a retired sci­en­tist who is
extreme­ly law abid­ing and is at a loss to under­stand why his name should
appear on this paper­work. He did have an alter­ca­tion with a Secu­ri­ty Guard
who refused to let him pass down Thrupp Lane BOAT (Byway open to all
Traf­fic) say­ing it was a ByWay and he could­n’t dri­ve his vehi­cle down it.

Any­one who vis­its the lakes is like­ly to be fol­lowed round by a pair of
burly secu­ri­ty guards who are look­ing for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to have a
con­fronta­tion. Some­one vis­it­ed this morn­ing and report­ed his path barred by
three secu­ri­ty men from NPow­er, threat­en­ing that if he tried to go past
them, he was in breach of the “injunc­tion” and they would have him arrest­ed
because no one is allowed with­in 5 feet of a Secu­ri­ty Guard or NPow­er’s
prop­er­ty.

CAMP BLING Photo report

Show your sup­port by com­ing to the fol­low­ing: PARKRALLY ‘SAVE PRIORY PARK!!’ A fund­ing deci­sion on the con­tro­ver­sial Pri­o­ry Cre­sent road widen­ing is due. Please join us for a mass ral­ly and demon­stra­tion from 6.30pm on Thurs­day 22nd Feb­ru­ary, at Southend Civic Cen­tre, to show the deci­sion mak­ers your oppo­si­tion to the scheme. Videos, pho­tos, … Con­tin­ue read­ing “CAMP BLING Pho­to report”

camp bling bender
camp bling knight
camp bling platform
camp bling house & tower
camp bling treehouse
camp bling visitors centre
Show your sup­port by com­ing to the fol­low­ing:

PARKRALLY ‘SAVE PRIORY PARK!!’

A fund­ing deci­sion on the con­tro­ver­sial Pri­o­ry Cre­sent road widen­ing is due. Please join us for a mass ral­ly and demon­stra­tion from 6.30pm on Thurs­day 22nd Feb­ru­ary, at Southend Civic Cen­tre, to show the deci­sion mak­ers your oppo­si­tion to the scheme.

Videos, pho­tos, events etc.….
http://www.ppps.org.uk/ -

Con­tacts, blog, news, events.…
http://www.savepriorypark.org.uk/

>VISTORS ALWAYS WELCOME

Check http://www.savepriorypark.org.uk/ for direc­tions to the site.

Anti-nuclear campaigners block UK WMD factory

13.02.2007

Yes­ter­day six peo­ple were arrest­ed out­side AWE mAl­der­mas­ton dur­ing an hour+long block­ade of the nuclear weapons fac­to­ry. Next BtB block­ade 19 March — check the web­site for more info. What fol­lows is a BtB press release, issued yes­ter­day

Aldermaston Feb 07 blockade13.02.2007

Yes­ter­day six peo­ple were arrest­ed out­side AWE mAl­der­mas­ton dur­ing an hour+long block­ade of the nuclear weapons fac­to­ry. Next BtB block­ade 19 March — check the web­site for more info. What fol­lows is a BtB press release, issued yes­ter­day

BLOCK THE BUILDERS
——————————————-
12 Feb­ru­ary 2007 — for imme­di­ate release
——————————————-

ANTI-NUCLEAR CAMPAIGNERS BLOCK UK WMD FACTORY

From 7am today [12/02/07], a group of around 50 anti-nuclear cam­paign­ers par­tic­i­pat­ed in block­ades and protests out­side Britain’s nuclear war­head fac­to­ry — AWE Alder­mas­ton in Berk­shire.

Using a con­crete-filled dust­bin, met­al lock-on tubes and D‑locks, two groups block­ad­ed the A340 on two sides of the base, close to entrances used by con­struc­tion traf­fic. Roads were closed for one hour and ten min­utes while spe­cial­ist police teams cut out pro­test­ers. Cranes and oth­er con­struc­tion traf­fic was pre­vent­ed from enter­ing the site while the block­ade was in progress. Oth­er cam­paign­ers used large ban­ners and flags to com­mu­ni­cate their anti-nuclear mes­sage.

AWE is the site of ongo­ing con­struc­tion work on new nuclear weapons facil­i­ties — on a sim­i­lar scale to Heathrow’s Ter­mi­nal 5. Work on the new Ori­on laser has start­ed, despite the fact that a vote on the future of the UK’s nuclear weapons sys­tem is not due until March.

Six peo­ple were arrest­ed dur­ing the protest, for obstruc­tion of the high­way. Two were sub­se­quent­ly charged and will appear at New­bury Mag­is­trates’ Court on 22 Feb­ru­ary. Between eight and ten hours after arrest, four were giv­en cau­tions.

All six had been hand­cuffed on arrest by Thames Val­ley and Hamp­shire police, though none had resist­ed arrest or attempt­ed to abscond. Organ­is­ing group Block the Builders — an explic­it­ly non­vi­o­lent direct action group — are con­sid­er­ing writ­ing to Thames Val­ley police to query this inter­pre­ta­tion of police guide­lines on the use of hand­cuffs.

With the gov­ern­ment poised to force a par­lia­men­tary vote on whether to replace the Tri­dent nuclear sub­ma­rine fleet, cam­paign­ers are con­cerned that the deci­sion to recom­mit Britain to a fur­ther 50 years as a nuclear weapons state is being made with­out pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion. Polls have con­sis­tent­ly sug­gest­ed that a sub­stan­tial major­i­ty of the British pub­lic do not want to spend tax­es on a new nuclear weapons sys­tem.

A spokesper­son for Block the Builders said, “In a fort­night there will be tens of thou­sands on the streets of Lon­don, demon­strat­ing their oppo­si­tion to Tri­dent replace­ment. When asked, most peo­ple don’t want UK WMD: today in this qui­et cor­ner of Berk­shire, we are trans­lat­ing the will of this — fre­quent­ly silent — major­i­ty, into prac­ti­cal resis­tance. If the par­lia­men­tary vote goes in the gov­ern­men­t’s favour, then AWE and the MoD had bet­ter get used to the idea of a long and active cam­paign of oppo­si­tion.”

This morn­ing’s actions are part of an ongo­ing cam­paign of non­vi­o­lent resis­tance to new facil­i­ties being devel­oped at the Alder­mastn site — which cam­paign­ers believe will facil­i­tate the next gen­er­a­tion of nuclear weapons.

ENDS

btb@aldermaston.net
http://www.blockthebuilders.org.uk

Npower uses Thugs to Evict Radley Lakes Environmental Activists

At approx 5am Tues­day 6th Feb­ru­ary 12 bailiffs dressed from head to foot in black and wear­ing bal­a­clavas with­out warn­ing smashed through the win­dow of the occu­pied npow­er prop­er­ty show­er­ing sleep­ing activist in glass. They then pro­ceed­ed to cut the air sup­ply to a for­ti­fied bunker with­out check­ing if it was occu­pied, smash there way into a for­ti­fied loft with­out check­ing that the occu­pant Dave was safe. Not long after this they climbed onto the scaf­fold tow­er posi­tioned on the garage roof and topped with a wood­en box con­tain­ing a 45 gal­lon con­crete lock. Chris who was in the box at the time said they climbed on top of the box and start­ed to rock the tow­er before break­ing in with sledge ham­mers. Vet­er­an road pro­test­er Mup­pet Dave said ‘it was one of the most dan­ger­ous evic­tion he had expe­ri­enced and that it was only luck that nobody was seri­ous­ly hurt’.

Radley baliffs tip lock-on barrelAt approx 5am Tues­day 6th Feb­ru­ary 12 bailiffs dressed from head to foot in black and wear­ing bal­a­clavas with­out warn­ing smashed through the win­dow of the occu­pied npow­er prop­er­ty show­er­ing sleep­ing activist in glass. They then pro­ceed­ed to cut the air sup­ply to a for­ti­fied bunker with­out check­ing if it was occu­pied, smash there way into a for­ti­fied loft with­out check­ing that the occu­pant Dave was safe. Not long after this they climbed onto the scaf­fold tow­er posi­tioned on the garage roof and topped with a wood­en box con­tain­ing a 45 gal­lon con­crete lock. Chris who was in the box at the time said they climbed on top of the box and start­ed to rock the tow­er before break­ing in with sledge ham­mers. Vet­er­an road pro­test­er Mup­pet Dave said ‘it was one of the most dan­ger­ous evic­tion he had expe­ri­enced and that it was only luck that nobody was seri­ous­ly hurt’.

Two activists were arrest­ed and one sub­se­quent­ly de-arrest­ed and Chris is due in Did­cot Mag­is­trates Court on Thurs­day 15th charged with obstruc­tion of the Bailiffs. Short­ly after­wards npow­er swift­ly cor­doned of the lakes despite a ongo­ing legal chal­lenge by the local “Save Radley Lakes” group for it to be recog­nised as com­mon land.

The prop­er­ty was occu­pied with the inten­tion of cre­at­ing a field cen­tre to raise aware­ness and pre­vent these beau­ti­ful lakes being in filled with tox­ic ash from the burn­ing of coal at the Ger­man owned RWE npow­er Did­cot pow­er sta­tion. How­ev­er, despite mas­sive sup­port from the local com­mu­ni­ty, where there is over­whelm­ing oppo­si­tion to npower’s plans, and near­by envi­ron­men­tal groups it soon became clear that npow­er were hav­ing non of it, so we decide to oppose the repos­ses­sion and dig in. This deci­sion instant­ly cre­at­ed more media inter­est embar­rass­ing npow­er and under­min­ing their green­wash and it was prob­a­bly for this rea­son that they decide to dis­re­gard the safe­ty of indi­vid­u­als and send in the heav­ies. We are no seek­ing to take legal action against Sher­cu­ri­ty Ltd for the lack of health and safe­ty pro­ce­dure and endan­ger­ment of life. How­ev­er, we ful­ly intend to con­tin­ue our cam­paign to save the lakes and against RWE npow­er for both local and glob­al pol­lu­tion of the plan­et.

Sher­cu­ri­ty Ltd — have dealt with protest evic­tions (& squat­ters) before:
Main Tele­phone num­ber: +44 (0)845 890 9220
Fax: +44 (0)0845 890 9221

Com­pa­ny Offices
Sher­group House, Brain­tree Freeport, No 3 Freeport Office Vil­lage, Cen­tu­ry Dri­ve, Brain­tree, Essex CM77 8YG

Lon­don: 20–21 Tooks Court, Lon­don EC4A 1LB

http://www.shercurity.net/