Category: West Midlands

West Mid­lands

The first Green and Black Cross Network Gathering

Lon­don June 18th 11–6 Fol­lowed by a social. Venue TBC

Sup­port is attack!

Green and Black Cross were set up after the Mill­bank demon­stra­tion of Novem­ber last year through iden­ti­fy­ing a need for the type of sup­port that had been devel­oped in the Cli­mate Move­ment. Since then we have sup­port­ed hun­dreds of peo­ple from many back­grounds in their rebel­lions and protests.

Lon­don June 18th 11–6 Fol­lowed by a social. Venue TBC

Sup­port is attack!

Green and Black Cross were set up after the Mill­bank demon­stra­tion of Novem­ber last year through iden­ti­fy­ing a need for the type of sup­port that had been devel­oped in the Cli­mate Move­ment. Since then we have sup­port­ed hun­dreds of peo­ple from many back­grounds in their rebel­lions and protests.
From a legal sup­port hot­line to tire­less legal observers on the streets, brave action medics to a kitchen team smug­gling flap­jacks behind police lines. Our empha­sis on sup­port is to allow the poten­tial for fur­ther rebel­lion, for peo­ple to rise up and in doing so take con­trol of the direc­tion of their lives and spread a rela­tion­ship of sol­i­dar­i­ty and mutu­al aid.

It’s time to get involved!

At Lon­don we’ve devel­oped work­ing groups around forms of sup­port includ­ing Legal, Kitchens, Medics, Toi­lets and Rad­i­cal Child Care. We want not only to strength­en these groups in the region but also to expand a sup­port net­work. If you’re from Man­ches­ter and you’ve been legal observ­ing on demon­stra­tions, if your from Leeds and you’re think­ing about pro­vid­ing food at pick­et lines, if you live in Bris­tol and you want to be there when pro­tes­tors get injured, where ever you live and you are think­ing about get­ting involved – come! Share skills, swap sto­ries and find out more. The day will be split between intro­duc­tions to the project, ques­tions and debate on the Green and Black Cross net­work struc­ture, work­ing group time to share and devel­op our prac­tices and end­ing the day with a social event.

Why Lon­don? Unfor­tu­nate­ly GBC is present­ly Lon­don based. We aim to bring about a hor­i­zon­tal net­work that con­tains region­al auton­o­my. To do this though we want to share where we’re at so far and to make this pos­si­ble to organ­ise we’ve called the gath­er­ing in the big smoke.

Want to get involved soon­er but need some skills and or infor­ma­tion? GBC has set up a project to offer info/skill shares for groups who want to be trained up in a par­tic­u­lar sup­port role. We can offer skill shares in your rea. Get in touch with GBC@riseup.net.

We’re trans­form­ing rela­tion­ships, we’re fight­ing destruc­tion. Get involved with GBC and make way for the move­ment! For more info and pos­si­bil­i­ties of crash space email GBC@Riseup.net

Full details — fol­low the link in the Action Dates & Gath­er­ings link, to the left

After Space for Change

The ‘dis­cus­sion space’ on crab­grass is the place to share com­ments, con­cerns and ideas about the decision(s) made at Space for Change. Here’s how:

1) Go to https://we.riseup.net/discussion_space.
2) Click ‘log in’ at the top right cor­ner
3) Once logged in, select ‘join group’
4) And you’re in!

The ‘dis­cus­sion space’ on crab­grass is the place to share com­ments, con­cerns and ideas about the decision(s) made at Space for Change. Here’s how:

1) Go to https://we.riseup.net/discussion_space.
2) Click ‘log in’ at the top right cor­ner
3) Once logged in, select ‘join group’
4) And you’re in!

If you don’t already have a crab­grass user­name and pass­word you can quick­ly get one by going to https://we.riseup.net and select­ing ‘new account’.

3) INTERIM WORKING GROUPS — get involved!

The fol­low­ing inter­im work­ing groups were set up at Space for Change:

- Tat and Dosh: to max­imise the use­ful­ness of our mate­r­i­al resources
— Com­mu­ni­ca­tions: to address ongo­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions and media issues. To learn from and doc­u­ment our expe­ri­ences
— New struc­tures: to inves­ti­gate new organ­i­sa­tion­al forms, struc­tures and tac­tics for pos­si­ble next exper­i­ments.
— Next meet­ing: to organ­ise a meet­ing in the next 2–3 months to share ideas about these next exper­i­ments

They each have Crab­grass pages that can be found by putting the fol­low­ing after https://we.riseup.net/
tat_dosh
com­mu­ni­ca­tions
new_structures
next_meeting

Then click ‘request to join group’.

All of these groups are part of the inter­im Crab­grass Net­work ‘After Space for Change’ which you can join here:
https://we.riseup.net/after_space_for_change. Hav­ing groups be part of a net­work is use­ful to be able to see what oth­er groups are doing.

You can either join the whole net­work or just one of the work­ing groups.

If Crab­grass is a bit strange to you, check out the help pages here:
https://we.riseup.net/crabgrass

4) METAMORPHOSIS STATEMENT

In case you missed the state­ment com­ing out of Space for Change at Monk­ton Wyld, it can be read on the Cli­mate Camp web­site here:
www.climatecamp.org.uk/2011-statement

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)

Gathering at Huntingdon Lane protest site from 10–13 December

The Shrop­shire anti-coal site at Hunt­ing­ton Lane was set up in April this year to defend the site against UK coal’s plans to mine the huge site set in thou­sands of hectares of beau­ti­ful wood­land in the heart of Shropshire’s beau­ti­ful coun­try­side.

The Shrop­shire anti-coal site at Hunt­ing­ton Lane was set up in April this year to defend the site against UK coal’s plans to mine the huge site set in thou­sands of hectares of beau­ti­ful wood­land in the heart of Shropshire’s beau­ti­ful coun­try­side.

On Octo­ber 13th UK coal along with NET (Nation­al Evic­tion Team), who are cur­rent­ly work­ing as secu­ri­ty on the site, moved in on the south­ern part of site and have begun work, trash­ing the land with a large array of mas­sive earth­mov­ing equip­ment. How­ev­er the camp is still going as good as ever and get­ting stronger by the day!
See our web­site, http://defendhuntingtonlane.wordpress.com/ for more infor­ma­tion.

We are call­ing for peo­ple to come and join us for an action-packed
extend­ed week­end of resis­tance at the site from the 10th-13th Decem­ber.

We plan to include skill­shar­ing includ­ing site skills, action and defence build­ing, infor­ma­tion shar­ing and net­work­ing with activists from oth­er cam­paigns.

Come to the gath­er­ing to enjoy free veg­an food, nature walks through huge areas of unin­ter­rupt­ed beau­ti­ful ancient wood­land, acoustic music by the camp­fire and enjoy­ing the com­pa­ny of the love­ly peo­ple at the site.

Some crash space is avail­able but if pos­si­ble please bring your own tent and sleep­ing equip­ment. Water­proof warm clothes are of course a neces­si­ty at this time of year too.

Food:
We will pro­vide tasty hot veg­an food for all the gath­er­ing by dona­tion, come with many hands for chop­ping veg.

How to get there:
Detailed trav­el direc­tions are avail­able at
http://defendhuntingtonlane.wordpress.com/public-transport-links/, or call us on 07503 583419, email defendhuntingtonlane@gmail.com for assis­tance.

Please help spread the word and bring your friends to the gath­er­ing!

Huntington Lane Eviction Call Out!

Site A Evic­tion Shock!
Wednes­day 13th Octo­ber, 2010

Site A at Hunt­ing­ton Lane has now been evict­ed and the camp mem­bers are putting out an urgent call out for peo­ple to get them­selves down to help defend the main protest camp, which is expect­ing evic­tion any minute.

Site A Evic­tion Shock!
Wednes­day 13th Octo­ber, 2010

Site A at Hunt­ing­ton Lane has now been evict­ed and the camp mem­bers are putting out an urgent call out for peo­ple to get them­selves down to help defend the main protest camp, which is expect­ing evic­tion any minute.

At around 8:30am today police offi­cers and mem­bers of the Nation­al Evic­tion Team arrived on Site A to find the tree hous­es sad­ly unoc­cu­pied. The tree hous­es have now been removed and branch­es lopped off the trees so they can’t go back up.

Pro­test­ers have been threat­ened with arrest should they tres­pass upon Site A. An evic­tion notice is yet to be served but this chain of events would appear to sug­gest its immi­nent arrival. We would encour­age any con­cerned indi­vid­u­als to pay a vis­it to camp whether it be to stay on, help out with defences, leave a dona­tion or lend their moral sup­port.

Site A is the south­ern most part of the site (see below marked as ‘site 2′) and the area where the mines infra­struc­ture is to be built and the min­ing is to begin.

The south­ern most part of the site (called site 2 in this image) has been evict­ed

The infra­struc­ture process has now begun and is expect­ed to be com­plet­ed rel­a­tive­ly quick­ly and the com­mence­ment of min­ing oper­a­tions is set to fol­low.

Please call 07503 583419 for info or to get involved.

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

Huntington Lane needs YOU!

UPDATE ON THE HUNTINGTON LANE OPEN CAST COAL MINE PROTEST SITE
It’s approach­ing six months since camp was set up at Hunt­ing­ton Lane open cast coal mine site and as the ‘anniver­sary’ approach­es things are begin­ning to speed up. With a lot of defen­sive work being car­ried out on site by pro­test­ers, UK Coal have been been mak­ing prepa­ra­tions of their own; it has been con­firmed that an Envi­ron­men­tal License will be issued by the end of the month to allow UK Coal to begin work, the water sup­ply has been con­nect­ed and farm­ers are being asked to remove stock from the south­ern site.

UPDATE ON THE HUNTINGTON LANE OPEN CAST COAL MINE PROTEST SITE
It’s approach­ing six months since camp was set up at Hunt­ing­ton Lane open cast coal mine site and as the ‘anniver­sary’ approach­es things are begin­ning to speed up. With a lot of defen­sive work being car­ried out on site by pro­test­ers, UK Coal have been been mak­ing prepa­ra­tions of their own; it has been con­firmed that an Envi­ron­men­tal License will be issued by the end of the month to allow UK Coal to begin work, the water sup­ply has been con­nect­ed and farm­ers are being asked to remove stock from the south­ern site. It has also been dis­cov­ered that jobs at the mine site are being advertised/allocated and local firm McPhilips will begin work­ing on the site infra­struc­ture very soon.
Time is fast run­ning out before an evic­tion notice is served and the camp would like to issue a call out for peo­ple, tools, lock on gear of all kinds (padlocks,D‑locks etc), water and food. If you’re unable to offer any of these things but would like to sup­port the camp, words of sol­i­dar­i­ty and sup­port are also very grate­ful­ly received 🙂
Camp

OPEN CAST COAL IN THE SHADOW OF THE WREKIN
In Octo­ber of 2009 UK Coal were grant­ed per­mis­sion by the then Sec­re­tary of State, John Den­ham to mine 900,000 tonnes of coal from a site called ‘Hunt­ing­ton Lane Sur­face Mine Site’ near Telford, Shrop­shire – this beau­ti­ful 230 acre site near The Wrekin encom­pass­es part of the Shrop­shire Hills AONB and is home to a sced­uled ancient mon­u­ment. At least one Coun­ty Wildlife Site and the flo­ra and fau­na of the borough’s largest and most valu­able areas of ancient wood­land are threat­ened by the sur­face mine. The devel­op­ment also involves the dis­tur­bance of four bad­ger setts and the for­ag­ing ter­ri­to­ries of a fur­ther two bad­ger clans.

Not only does the pro­posed mine rep­re­sent a major blot on the beau­ti­ful rur­al land­scape, being clear­ly vis­i­ble from the Wrekin and many oth­er local areas, and also cre­ate three years of noise and dust for local res­i­dents – the sub­se­quent burn­ing of the mined coal will release a min­i­mum of 2,430,000 tonnes of cli­mate chang­ing CO2 emis­sions into the atmos­phere.

In March 2010 pro­test­ers moved onto the site in an effort to resist this destruc­tion at the hands of UK Coal.

huntingtolane1

HOW TO GET THERE
The entry point is actu­al­ly on New Works Lane, New Works, Telford, Shrop­shire. The near­est train sta­tion is Welling­ton (Telford West).

For a map view go to:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=tf6+5bs&sll=52.675432,-2.498875&sspn=0.005738,0.013797&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Telford+TF6+5BS,+United+Kingdom&ll=52.675174,-2.499985&spn=0.000724,0.001725&t=h&z=19

The mark­er on the map is not quite in the right place but is very close to the entry point for camp – the stile is actu­al­ly on the oth­er side of New Works Lane, just before the hous­es begin, in the bush­es to the right of a shon­ky old gate! (Please don’t block the gate if you’re com­ing by car/van as it’s still in use by the farmer – park at the side of the road if you can. There is more space to park head­ing north up New Works Lane) If you zoom right in on the map you can see the entrance on Streetview, but be warned – the green­ery around the stile has grown sub­stan­cial­ly since this pic­ture was tak­en! Once over the stile just fol­low the path; it breaks off to the left behind the hous­es and also to the right a lit­tle fur­ther along; ignore these turn­ings and fol­low the straight path which bears to the left after them. Con­tin­ue to fol­low the path until you reach the sign direct­ing you to camp.

HOW TO CONTACT THE CAMP
Tel: 07503 583419 or 07727 295232
Email: defendhuntingtonlane@hushmail.com
Web: http://defendhuntingtonlane.wordpress.com

*PLEASE PASS THIS INFOMATION ON TO ANY PERSONS OR GROUPS YOU THINK MAY BE INTERESTED*

Many Thanks!

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

Anti-Coal Protest raft sails down River Seven

On Sun­day 31st res­i­dents from the Hunt­ing­ton Lane Camp took their mes­sage onto the riv­er Sev­en and sailed it down­stream. The six per­son raft com­plete with a big “No New Coal” ban­ner and UK Coal dig­ger fig­ure­head sailed down the Riv­er Sev­en and past EON’s Build­was B coal fired pow­er sta­tion which is where the coal from Hunt­ing­ton Lane will even­tu­al­ly end up. It then sailed fur­ther down­stream and under the famous Iron Bridge where it was meet with cheers from a crowd of locals and tourists who had gath­ered on the bridge.

No New Coal Raft
On Sun­day 31st res­i­dents from the Hunt­ing­ton Lane Camp took their mes­sage onto the riv­er Sev­en and sailed it down­stream. The six per­son raft com­plete with a big “No New Coal” ban­ner and UK Coal dig­ger fig­ure­head sailed down the Riv­er Sev­en and past EON’s Build­was B coal fired pow­er sta­tion which is where the coal from Hunt­ing­ton Lane will even­tu­al­ly end up. It then sailed fur­ther down­stream and under the famous Iron Bridge where it was meet with cheers from a crowd of locals and tourists who had gath­ered on the bridge.

There was also a team on land who were rais­ing aware­ness of the camp by talk­ing to the peo­ple on the river­side and bridge about what they were doing and why they where doing it. Gen­er­al­ly most peo­ple were sup­port­ive and pos­i­tive about the cam­paign. The event also had a fair bit of local media over­age with the Shrop­shire Star and Mid­lands Today both cov­er­ing it.

The camp has now been stop­ping work at Hunt­ing­ton Lane almost six months, if you want to help then dona­tions of food, tools and water are always appre­ci­at­ed as are new faces at the camp

West Mid­lands Cli­mate Action
http://wmclimateaction.wordpress.com/
http://wmclimateaction.wordpress.com/2010/08/01/protest-raft-river-seven/