Category: South West England

South West Eng­land

Reclaim the Fields Spring Gathering 2012

The first Reclaim the Fields Gath­er­ing of the year will be tak­ing place this March at the Wilder­ness Cen­tre in the For­est of Dean.

The pro­vi­sion­al timetable includes work­shops on:

The first Reclaim the Fields Gath­er­ing of the year will be tak­ing place this March at the Wilder­ness Cen­tre in the For­est of Dean.

The pro­vi­sion­al timetable includes work­shops on:

*How to organ­ise & main­tain effec­tive land occu­pa­tions
*An intro­duc­tion to land rights
*Com­post­ing gen­der
*Legal options for access­ing land
*Learn­ing from Peas­ant Strug­gles in the Glob­al South
*Using the food sov­er­eign­ty prin­ci­ples as a strate­gic frame­work

There will also be feed­back from the Euro­pean Reclaim the Field Gath­er­ings & con­stel­la­tion as well as space for work­ing group ses­sions around:

*Seed Sov­er­eign­ty
*WWOLF (woof­ing with teeth) and Reclaim the Field Trips
*Plan­ning for Inter­na­tion­al Peas­ants Day of Strug­gle on April 17th

Some guer­ril­la-gar­den­ing type actions are also planned through­out. Sat­ur­day 10th is the Wilder­ness Cen­tre’s pub­lic open day so there will also be prac­ti­cal skills-shar­ing work­shops.

When: Accom­mo­da­tion is avail­able from the evening of Wednes­day 7th. Oth­er­wise the gath­er­ing is two full days Thurs­day & Fri­day 8–9th March. The For­est always wel­comes vis­i­tors so arrange with them if you want to stay & help out before hand.
Where: Wilder­ness Cen­tre, For­est of Dean. Direc­tions are here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Protect-the-Wilderness-Centre-Forest-of-Dean/321890141176064
Who to con­tact for more infor­ma­tion: use the RTF UK email list or email frankynecklace@yahoo.co.uk

What to bring: Sleep­ing bags, blan­kets, mats, own set of cut­lery & bowl if pos­si­ble. There is indoor sleep­ing space and room for tents out­side. Any home grown food to share & also seeds to swap.

Food will be a min­i­mum of £5 dona­tion per day. Any oth­er dona­tions are wel­come

More sug­ges­tions for work­shops, ses­sions & oth­er activ­i­ties are always wel­come, this is our con­stel­la­tion & gath­er­ing to make things hap­pen.

About:

Reclaim the Fields is a con­stel­la­tion of peo­ple and col­lec­tive projects will­ing to go back to the land and reas­sume the con­trol over food pro­duc­tion. We are deter­mined to cre­ate alter­na­tives to cap­i­tal­ism through coop­er­a­tive, col­lec­tive, autonomous, real needs ori­ent­ed small scale pro­duc­tion and ini­tia­tives, putting the­o­ry into prac­tice and link­ing local prac­ti­cal action with glob­al polit­i­cal strug­gles.
You can find more about us, our strug­gles & more resources such as down­load­able zines here: www.reclaimthefields.org.uk

Call from the Wilderness Forest of Dean Wilderness Centre

State­ment from the Wilder­ness Cen­tre : On the day of Glouces­ter­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil meet­ing that will deter­mine the coun­cils next course of action.

State­ment from the Wilder­ness Cen­tre : On the day of Glouces­ter­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil meet­ing that will deter­mine the coun­cils next course of action.

Two activists jedi’d their way into the meet­ing, and hand­ing out our “state­ment of intent” (link below) to the offi­cious types sat around with mem­bers of the police, var­i­ous coun­cil offi­cers and advi­sors in Shire Hall, Glouces­ter, before being ask­ing to leave ‑all was very polite, civ­il and in good humour.

We await their deci­sion, which will dic­tate our next move.

Call from the Wilder­ness

Here in the wilder­ness we are try­ing to find our way home. How did we come to dwell here in the wilder­ness? For over 40 years the wilder­ness has been a pio­neer­ing envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion cen­tre. Then last year Glouces­ter­shire coun­ty coun­cil decid­ed that it was no longer in the pub­lic inter­est to sus­tain the cen­tre. Bet­ter val­ue for the tax­pay­er to sell it to the high­est bid­der? We dis­agree. We believe that edu­ca­tion is the great­est source of wealth in our com­mu­ni­ties. Sure­ly the exploita­tion of our envi­ron­ment can only be dri­ven by igno­rance. Edu­ca­tion is our great­est tool in the strug­gle against exploita­tion.
The coun­cil seem to think oth­er­wise. The coun­ty coun­cil, or in their words “the pow­ers that be” think we are home­less. Trav­ellers, squat­ters they tell us to… move on. They want us out of here. We don’t belong here. They tell us we have no right to be here. They’ve set their wolves to prowl around the grounds lock­ing things down. They want our names and pre­vi­ous address­es. They don’t trust us. They are con­cerned about health and safe­ty. The pub­lic are a lia­bil­i­ty. We tried to talk about respon­si­bil­i­ty. We tried to assure them that we ful­ly com­pre­hend the impli­ca­tions of a com­post toi­let. But they are doubt­ful.

Exact­ly who is bewil­dered?

We came here on the first full moon of the year with the inten­tion of cre­at­ing an envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion cen­tre to dis­close a process of learn­ing the skills and tech­niques required to move towards a home found­ed upon the prin­ci­ples of eco­nom­ic self-suf­fi­cien­cy and eco­log­i­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty.
To be a force of res­o­lu­tion we need peo­ple to join us. Deci­sive peo­ple who under­stand the con­se­quences of there actions. Com­mit­ted, hard work­ing peo­ple. We need peo­ple with a respect for food. We need gar­den­ers and grow­ers who can cul­ti­vate the ideas that have been sown in our soil by the dif­fer­ing schools of per­ma­cul­ture and bio-dynam­ics. Who know how let these ideas grow organ­i­cal­ly. We need peo­ple with the deter­mi­na­tion to dig. Reflec­tive peo­ple who look for their reflec­tion in oth­ers. Peo­ple who can prac­tice the hos­pi­tal­i­ty of the guest. Peo­ple who do not wait for oth­ers to make nec­es­sary changes.
Here in the wilder­ness we make our­selves at home. You are wel­come.

State­ment of Intent : protectthewilderness.org.uk/protect.html
Web­site (still in progress) protectthewilderness.org.uk

———————————————————–
Pro­tect The Wilder­ness

Call-out! Eco-education centre reopened, Forest of dean, help needed!

This is a call out for sup­port.

Last night the For­est of Dean Eco-vil­lage swooped and reclaimed an envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion cen­tre closed by the cuts, we intend to reopen it and run it as a free edu­ca­tion space for the local com­mu­ni­ty and beyond.

We invite you to come join us on our jour­ney towards cre­at­ing a sus­tain­able future.

This is a call out for sup­port.

Last night the For­est of Dean Eco-vil­lage swooped and reclaimed an envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion cen­tre closed by the cuts, we intend to reopen it and run it as a free edu­ca­tion space for the local com­mu­ni­ty and beyond.

We invite you to come join us on our jour­ney towards cre­at­ing a sus­tain­able future.

We need peo­ple to come help hold down the space, work on the build­ings, gar­dens, wood­lands, run work­shops, skill shares and help use this rare resource to its max­i­mum poten­tial.

If you have some­thing to con­tribute in terms of time, ener­gy, ideas, skills and resources you are wel­come to join us.

If you are inter­est­ed please con­tact us at…

admin [at] apokaluptein [dot] org [dot] uk

tel:0781 172 6372

See you in the woods!

Stop New Nuclear newsletter no 10, 3 December 2011

Dear all,

Dear all,

this is our first newslet­ter since the Stop New Nuclear gath­er­ing in Bris­tol on 5/6 Novem­ber, where we decid­ed on our next major action. We are all excit­ed about our new plan, and with this newslet­ter we send you some infor­ma­tion about the planned action to sur­round Hink­ley Point on 10 March 2011, fol­lowed by a 24 hour block­ade until 11 March 2011. All this to mark one year since the begin­ning of the cat­a­stro­phe of Fukushi­ma, which is far from over.

No more Fukushimas

Fukushi­ma is the biggest indus­tri­al dis­as­ter in his­to­ry, and has brought Japan to its knees. The reac­tors that went into melt­down in March have now melt­ed through the foun­da­tions and 40 years of accu­mu­lat­ed nuclear waste is emit­ting vast amounts of radi­a­tion, con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the land, sea and air. In des­per­a­tion, the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment is trans­port­ing and burn­ing radioac­tive rub­ble all over Japan and export­ing high­ly con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed food as “aid” to devel­op­ing coun­tries. Men, women and chil­dren are liv­ing in high­ly radioac­tive areas but they are not being evac­u­at­ed as they should be. This intense radi­a­tion expo­sure has very seri­ous health con­se­quences for these peo­ple.

How has Japan end­ed up in this dread­ful sit­u­a­tion? Their gov­ern­ment always said “It can’t hap­pen here.” Sound famil­iar? Pow­er­ful polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic inter­est groups are gag­ging the world’s media on this unfold­ing tragedy. Ordi­nary peo­ple the world over will pay the price.
Since the first civil­ian reac­tor start­ed gen­er­at­ing in 1954, there has been, on aver­age, a major acci­dent every 14–18 years: Wind­scale 1957, Three Mile Island1979, Cher­nobyl 1986, Fukushi­ma 2011.

Stop New Nuclear’s answer to the cri­sis of Fukushi­ma is clear: now new nuclear in Britain and any­where else! There­fore, our action on “Fukushi­ma day” will be to

Surround and blockade Hinkley Point, Somerset

Hink­ley Point is the first of eight pro­posed sites for nuclear new build to go ahead. We stopped them here before in 1987, and we can do it again in 2012. If they fail at Hink­ley, it is unlike­ly the “nuclear renais­sance” will have the momen­tum to con­tin­ue.
On the 10th ‑11th March 2012, one year since the Fukushi­ma nuclear dis­as­ter began, we will return to Hink­ley to form a human chain around the sta­tion to show our deter­mined oppo­si­tion to new nuclear.
In 2010, dozens of us block­ad­ed the gates at Hink­ley. In 2011 hun­dreds of us block­ad­ed the entrance again. In 2012, thou­sands of us will sur­round the pow­er sta­tion to say No to new nuclear! Not here, not any­where!
In Octo­ber 2011, peo­ple pledged to block­ade. This time, pledge to bring 5 friends and tell them to do the same. Thou­sands are need­ed to sur­round the sta­tion!
Pledge to sur­round Hink­ley Point, to bring five friends, or to block­ade Hink­ley Point

Help us mobilise

To ‘Sur­round Hink­ley’ is to demand to have a voice in deci­sions about our ener­gy future. Help to make this a fes­ti­val of cre­ative resis­tance with music, art, the­atre, ban­ners, and what­ev­er takes your fan­cy! To mark the end of the ‘Sur­round’, there will be a gath­er­ing at the main gate of Hink­ley for a ral­ly and music. You may want to return on the coach­es after the action or stay to block­ade the gates for 24 hours. With tents and tubes we will remain at the gates to show our sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Japan.

The time to act is now! Join your local anti nuclear cam­paign, form affin­i­ty groups. The Stop New Nuclear Alliance can help by giv­ing train­ing in non-vio­lent direct action, con­sen­sus deci­sion- mak­ing, spokes coun­cils and advice on trans­port etc….

In our hun­dreds, in our thou­sands we will come togeth­er to stop nuclear pow­er at Hink­ley Point and dis­man­tle the whole new nuclear agen­da! This is the chance to be part of sme­thing mas­sive. JOIN US!

Please help to spread the mes­sage by either down­load­ing the fli­er, or ask us to send you a pack. We wel­come some dona­tion to cov­er postage, but even if you can’t — we need to get the mes­sage out!

Get in touch with us if you want to organ­ise a minibus or put on a coach.

News from nuclear new build

Hinkley Point

There was some news at the end of Octo­ber that EDF is delay­ing its final invest­ment deci­sion about Hink­ley C (and its oth­er planned new nuclear pow­er sta­tions in the UK: Sizewell, Heysham, etc) until the end of 2012. How­ev­er, EDF still insists that it will sub­mit its appli­ca­tion to the Infra­struc­ture Plan­ning Com­mis­sion soon, and also declared that it wants to start prepar­ing the site for Hink­ley C from spring 2012 on. For us, this means two things:

  • The next year will be cru­cial to push EDF to aban­don its plans for Hink­ley C. We need to step our cam­paign­ing to show EDF that it is not a good idea to invest in Hink­ley C, and that they should invest in renew­able ener­gy instead.
  • EDF still wants to pre­pare the site, which means it wants to destroy the land from spring 2012 on, even though there is not even a final deci­sion whether they will real­ly go ahead with Hink­ley C. This shows that a legal chal­lenge to the pre­lim­i­nary works per­mis­sion is even more impor­tant. Stop Hink­ley is rais­ing funds for a legal chal­lenge to West Som­er­set Coun­cil’s deci­sion to grant EDF per­mis­sion to car­ry out prepara­to­ry work on the site, even though EDF is still far from a per­mis­sion to con­struct the pow­er sta­tion itself (and has­n’t even made a final deci­sion). Stop Hink­ley needs to raise about £15,000 for this legal chal­lenge, to please sup­port Stop Hink­ley. More infor­ma­tion at http://stophinkley.org/LegChallAppeal.htm.

Nev­er­the­less, EDF went ahead with its appli­ca­tion to the Infra­struc­ture Plan­ning Com­mis­sion (IPC). The IPC has accept­ed the appli­ca­tion, and from Fri­day, 2 Decem­ber, there are 28 days for every­one to reg­is­ter that they want to com­ment on the appli­ca­tion. This is only a first reg­is­tra­tion, and does not need to be accom­pa­nied by the detailed objec­tions, but with­out this reg­is­tra­tion, you will not be able to object lat­er.

The Infra­struc­ture Plan­ning Com­mis­sion is also organ­is­ing events local­ly near Hink­ley Point to explain the process, when to reg­is­ter and how to make a rep­re­sen­ta­tion to the IPC. They will be held between 10am – 9pm at the fol­low­ing loca­tions:
- Stogursey — Mon­day 5 Decem­ber, The Vic­to­ry Hall, Tow­er Hill, Stogursey, TA5 1PR
- Can­ning­ton — Thurs­day 8 Decem­ber, Can­ning­ton Vil­lage Hall, 2 Brook Street, Can­ning­ton, TA5 2HP
- Willi­ton — Fri­day 9 Decem­ber, West Som­er­set House, Kil­lick Way, Willi­ton, TA4 4QA
- North Pether­ton — Mon­day 12 Decem­ber, The Wal­nut Tree Hotel, North Pether­ton, TA6 6QA
- Comb­wich — Tues­day 13 Decem­ber, Otter­hamp­ton Vil­lage Hall, River­side, Comb­wich, TA5 2QZ
- Bridg­wa­ter — Wednes­day 14 Decem­ber, Town Hall, High Street, Bridg­wa­ter, TA6 3BL.
More infor­ma­tion on the plan­ning process is avail­able on the web­site of the IPC at http://infrastructure.independent.gov.uk/projects/south-west/hinkley-point-c-new-nuclear-power-station/.

Stop Hink­ley will be pre­sent­ing more than 12,000 peti­tions against Hink­ley Point C at Down­ing Street on Tues­day, 6 Decem­ber, at at 1.30pm and at the Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change in Lon­don on 6th Decem­ber at 2.00 pm. Mem­bers of Stop Hink­ley will be accom­pa­nied by Wells MP Tes­sa Munt and Green Par­ty leader and MP Car­o­line Lucas. The Depart­ment of Ener­gy is at 3 White­hall Place, Lon­don SW1A 2AW. More infor­ma­tion in the Stop Hink­ley press release at http://stopnuclearpoweruk.net/content/stop-hinkley-campaign-presents-petition-government-against-edf%E2%80%99s-nuclear-plans.

Wylfa

Things are also hot­ting up at Wyl­fa, where Hori­zon, a joint ven­ture of Ger­man util­i­ty com­pa­nies RWE and E.on, is plan­ning to build two to three new nuclear reac­tors. Hori­zon con­tin­ue to bul­ly the Jones fam­i­ly of Caerde­gog and have applied for com­pul­so­ry pow­ers to ascer­tain the suit­abil­i­ty of their land for con­struc­tion. Hori­zon Nuclear Pow­er (HNP) recent­ly applied to Ofgem for Sec­tion D of their Elec­tric­i­ty Gen­er­a­tion Licence to be “switched on”. Imme­di­ate­ly upon approval, HNP applied to Ofgem for con­sent to exer­cise their new explorato­ry rights under the Elec­tric­i­ty Act 1989. This would allow a gen­er­a­tion licence hold­er to enter and sur­vey any land to estab­lish whether it would be suit­able for the con­struc­tion of an elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion sta­tion. It would also give them the pow­er to exe­cute their author­i­ty to make com­pul­so­ry land pur­chase. On Thurs­day after­noon 17th Novem­ber, Richard Jones and his fam­i­ly received a let­ter in Eng­lish only from Ofgem inform­ing them of the rights recent­ly grant­ed to HNP to gain access to their land at Caerde­gog. Ofgem have failed in their duty under the Welsh Lan­guage Act to pro­vide the Jones fam­i­ly with the doc­u­ments in their own lan­guage. Fur­ther­more it is con­sid­ered unrea­son­able for any objec­tions to be lodged with­in a time lim­it of five work­ing days espe­cial­ly in view of the legal con­tent of the cor­re­spon­dence (see the offi­cial con­sul­ta­tion at http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Pages/MoreInformation.aspx?file=Consultation%20on%20Horizon%20Application%20for%20Consent%20to%20use%20Exploratory%20Rights.pdf&refer=Licensing/Work).
Hori­zon have con­tin­ued to say that they would only use com­pul­so­ry pow­ers as a last resort yet they exe­cut­ed their new­ly acquired author­i­ty with­in days of it being grant­ed.
On behalf of the fam­i­ly, Richard Jones said: “We as a fam­i­ly will resist Horizon’s bul­ly­ing tac­tics in the attempt­ed destruc­tion of our her­itage, our liveli­hood and our future.”
See the press release of Peo­ple Against Wyl­fa B at http://stopnuclearpoweruk.net/content/nuclear-monster-continues-torment-local-family.

Donate

The new action to sur­round Hink­ley, and the 24 hour block­ade, will need a lot of mon­ey to make them hap­pen. While we don’t start with noth­ing, we are nowhere near what we will need. We are present­ly work­ing on a bud­get, but one thing is clear: Please give gen­er­ous­ly. You can donate online at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/donate, or you can send a cheque made payable to Stop New Nuclear to:
Stop New Nuclear
c/o 5 Cale­don­ian Road
Lon­don N1 9DX
Thank you!

Stop New Nuclear newslet­ter

 

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

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

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

24–26th Feb­ru­ary 2012, near Glas­gow

Near­est train sta­tion: Lanark.

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

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

24–26th Feb­ru­ary 2012, near Glas­gow

Near­est train sta­tion: Lanark.

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

Update:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

efwintermoot@noflag.org.uk

Hinkley Point blockaders declare victory over EDF Energy

3/10/2011
For about nine hours, we block­ad­ed the nuclear pow­er sta­tion with up to 400 peo­ple. This was the biggest anti nuclear pow­er action in Britain for quite some years. It marked the begin­ning of a new anti nuclear pow­er move­ment in this coun­try, and you all made this pos­si­ble.

3/10/2011
For about nine hours, we block­ad­ed the nuclear pow­er sta­tion with up to 400 peo­ple. This was the biggest anti nuclear pow­er action in Britain for quite some years. It marked the begin­ning of a new anti nuclear pow­er move­ment in this coun­try, and you all made this pos­si­ble.
This time, the block­ade was tol­er­at­ed by EDF and the police. Only one per­son was arrest­ed when walk­ing on the pub­lic foot­path along the fence.
He was stopped and searched by police, and arrest­ed for pos­ses­sion of a craft knife. Luck­i­ly, he was lat­er released from Taunton police sta­tion with­out charge.

Those of you who came to the camp after the action are aware of a police inci­dent: a mobile CCTV vehi­cle of Avon & Som­er­set police drove onto the camp site, film­ing all the time. After a while it was pos­si­ble to per­suade them to leave the site.
Stop New Nuclear sees this as a provo­ca­tion, and we made it very clear that this inci­dent destroyed a lot of the trust between the police and the cam­paign that had been built in the run-up to the block­ade.
The police Sil­ver Com­mand has since sent an ‘apol­o­gy email’ that says they’ve delet­ed the mate­r­i­al.

The camp, demon­stra­tion, and block­ade of Hink­ley Point was not a one-off, nor was it the end — it should be the begin­ning of a pow­er­ful and cre­ative anti nuclear pow­er move­ment in Britain, that will stop the plans for eight new nuclear pow­er sta­tions in its tracks. To make this hap­pen, we need you!
We are there­fore organ­is­ing a Stop New Nuclear gath­er­ing in Bris­tol in Novem­ber (unfor­tu­nate­ly, we have not been able to set the date yet), to dis­cuss and plan the next cam­paigns and actions against nuclear new build in Britain. Please get involved — we need to grow as a move­ment, and this means we need more peo­ple organ­is­ing our actions. Please check back for updates and reg­is­ter for the Stop New Nuclear gath­er­ing at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/gathering2011. More infor­ma­tion will be avail­able soon.

If you have any ideas for action, please share them in our ideas forum at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/ideasforum.

News from Hink­ley Point
The Envi­ron­ment Agency has extend­ed the dead­line for objec­tions to EDF’s envi­ron­men­tal per­mit appli­ca­tion until 15 Decem­ber. This means we now have much more time to col­lect hun­dreds or even thou­sands of objec­tions. Please down­load the objec­tion sheet from http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/objections-discharges, print it, sign it, and send it of to: PSC, PO Box 4404, Sheffield, S9 4WF

Press release:

Anti-nuclear pro­test­ers have declared the mass block­ade at Hink­ley Point today as a vic­to­ry over EDF Ener­gy. The nine-hour block­ade in Som­er­set attract­ed sup­port­ers from all over the UK. Sev­er­al came from as far afield as Ire­land, Ger­many and Bel­gium.

Stop New Nuclear spokesper­son, Andreas Speck, said the block­ade has put the gov­ern­ment and EDF on the back foot. ‘Fol­low­ing the inter­est this block­ade has attract­ed, both region­al­ly and nation­al­ly, the gov­ern­ment and EDF can no longer claim that the we need nuclear ener­gy to keep the lights on.’

He con­tin­ued: ‘Ger­many has com­mit­ted to a nuclear-free future with­out buy­ing nuclear pow­er from France or build­ing new coal-fired pow­er sta­tions. The Ger­man gov­ern­ment is look­ing at a decen­tralised ener­gy mod­el with a mix of renew­ables and Com­bined Heat and Pow­er (CHP) to bridge the gap left by with­draw­al from nuclear. If Ger­many can do it, why can’t we?’

Ang­ie Zel­ter, who hit the head­lines in 1996 when she and oth­er activists attacked a Hawk jet des­tined to sup­press protests in East Tim­or (and was sub­se­quent­ly cleared of crim­i­nal dam­age by a jury), blast­ed EDF’s claims that Hink­ley Point is sus­tain­able.

She added: ‘Over its life­time, Hink­ley will con­sume more ener­gy than it pro­duces — if you take into account the ener­gy used to extract ura­ni­um and the pow­er need­ed to store radioac­tive waste for hun­dreds of years. It doesn’t add up.’

Zel­ter said the risk of flood­ing is an increas­ing wor­ry. ‘Locals are well aware of the con­stant dan­ger of flood­ing around Hink­ley,’ she con­tin­ued. ‘We have infor­ma­tion from work­ers there that sev­er­al years ago, flood­wa­ter breached the plant’s retain­ing walls.’

She added that this was a par­tic­u­lar con­cern now that EDF wants to build two new mega reac­tors at Hink­ley. ‘Radioac­tive waste from the pro­posed new ERP reac­tors will be so tox­ic that it will have to be stored on the site for over 100 years. With the growth in extreme weath­er con­di­tions there is no guar­an­tee that this waste can be stored safe­ly.’

And Zel­ter blast­ed the gov­ern­ment for claim­ing that nuclear is the only solu­tion to com­bat­ing cli­mate change. ‘If the gov­ern­ment can spend bil­lion renew­ing Tri­dent mis­siles and fight­ing Gaddafi in Libya, why can’t they find the mon­ey to build tru­ly sus­tain­able ener­gy sys­tems that would cre­ate a great many more jobs than the nuclear sec­tor can?’

The mass block­ade was described by Stop New Nuclear organ­is­er, Andreas Speck, as a, ‘cel­e­bra­tion of dis­sent’ with pro-nuclear sup­port­ers being enter­tained by a Welsh choir and pop­u­lar fes­ti­val band, Seize The Day.

A man arrest­ed on a foot­path close to the block­ade was lat­er released with­out charge.

—

Reports, pic­tures and video.
More pho­tos
Camp pho­tos
Bridg­wa­ter demon­stra­tion
Block­ade of Hink­ley Point
Some pho­tos and some more
CND uploaded pho­tos here
We are slow­ly upload­ing videos

Mc-hammer time

In the ear­ly hours of Tues­day morn­ing (27/09/11) McDon­alds dri­ve thru in Bed­min­ster was vis­it­ed and thor­ough­ly smashed, with all it’s win­dows attacked.

Fuck Mcdon­alds and the death cul­ture they per­pet­u­ate and sym­bol­ise glob­al­ly, which means:

In the ear­ly hours of Tues­day morn­ing (27/09/11) McDon­alds dri­ve thru in Bed­min­ster was vis­it­ed and thor­ough­ly smashed, with all it’s win­dows attacked.

Fuck Mcdon­alds and the death cul­ture they per­pet­u­ate and sym­bol­ise glob­al­ly, which means:

abuse and mass slaugh­ter for mil­lions of ani­mals caged all their mis­er­able lives, poi­so­nous food, sick­ness and can­cer for humans, mind numb­ing drudgery and work­place con­trol and dis­ci­pline for work­ers treat­ed like slaves, destruc­tion for the envi­ron­ment and of course mas­sive prof­it for cap­i­tal­ists.

If you thought smash­ing up Mcdon­alds had gone out of ant­i­cap­i­tal­ist fash­ion, think again. We don’t for­get or for­give.

For earth, ani­mal and human lib­er­a­tion.

ALF / ELF

3rd October: Blockaders begin mass protest outside Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Station

More than 200 peo­ple have suc­cess­ful­ly sealed off the main entrance to Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Som­er­set.

Con­voys of pro­test­ers began to arrive at the main gate short­ly before 7am. The entrance is just yards away from where EDF Ener­gy is mak­ing a bid to build two new mega-reac­tors.

http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk

More than 200 peo­ple have suc­cess­ful­ly sealed off the main entrance to Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Som­er­set.

Con­voys of pro­test­ers began to arrive at the main gate short­ly before 7am. The entrance is just yards away from where EDF Ener­gy is mak­ing a bid to build two new mega-reac­tors.

http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk

The block­ade was launched with the arrival of a the­atri­cal troupe who enact­ed a nuclear dis­as­ter sce­nario sim­i­lar to Fukushi­ma. Approx­i­mate­ly 70% of pro­test­ers are from the South West. Oth­ers have come from as far afield as Bel­gium and Ger­many.

Well-known fes­ti­val band, Seize the Day, pro­vid­ed a musi­cal back­drop to the event. Andreas Speck, spokesper­son for the Stop New Nuclear alliance said: ‘This is the start of a new move­ment. We intend this day to be a cel­e­bra­tion of resis­tance against the gov­ern­ment and EDF Energy’s plans to spear­head the con­struc­tion of eight new nuclear pow­er plants around the UK.’

He con­tin­ued: ‘This is block­ade shows that peo­ple who under­stand the true dan­gers of nuclear pow­er are pre­pared to use civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to get their voice heard. The gov­ern­ment has hood­winked the pub­lic into believ­ing that we need nuclear pow­er to keep the lights on. But this is total­ly untrue.’

To show their sup­port for the vic­tims of the Fukushi­ma dis­as­ter, pro­test­ers will launch 206 heli­um bal­loons – to rep­re­sent the num­ber of days since the par­tial melt­down at the Japan­ese pow­er sta­tion. The jour­ney of bal­loons will be tracked to show which areas of the West Coun­try will be worst affect­ed should a major dis­as­ter hap­pen at Hink­ley Point.

‘We need to bring home to peo­ple that nuclear pow­er sta­tions can fail for many rea­sons – usu­al­ly because of human error,’ said Nik­ki Clark from South West Against Nuclear. ‘The explo­sion at a waste pro­cess­ing plant in France a few weeks ago is a clear reminder that nobody is safe from the dan­gers of nuclear ener­gy.’

Pro­test­ers are urg­ing min­is­ters to look to Ger­many where the gov­ern­ment has pledged to phase out nuclear pow­er with­in ten years. ‘The Ger­man gov­ern­ment has just pub­lished a blue­print for a sus­tain­able, nuclear-free future,’ said Camil­la Berens from cam­paign group, Kick Nuclear. The key focus is ener­gy reduc­tion and a bridg­ing tech­nol­o­gy called com­bined heat and pow­er (CHP). The burn­ing ques­tion is, if Ger­many can do it, why can’t we?’

For more infor­ma­tion on the ground, con­tact Camil­la Berens on: 07811–451417. Pho­tographs will be release at the Stop New Nuclear web­site lat­er today.

new EF! Action Update

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

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

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

The quar­ter­ly EF!AU, August 2011

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

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

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

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

News about Hink­ley Point

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stop Hink­ley respond­ed with the fol­low­ing state­ment:

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

Train­ing

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

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

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

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

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

Legal observer/legal sup­port work­shop Sun­day 3.00–5.00pm

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

Reg­is­ter for the Stop New Nuclear camp!

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

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

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

Demon­stra­tion in Bridg­wa­ter, 1 Octo­ber

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

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

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

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

Trans­port and park­ing

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

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

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

We need your help

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

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

Mobilise!

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

Donate

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

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

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

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

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