Diddly squats reports — Cambridge, London & Brighton [updated — eviction threat]

Cam­bridge: for­mer Wilco build­ing squat­ted — to be turned into social cen­tre

On Mon­day night, 19 May, the for­mer Wilco build­ing on Mill Road (the very site where Tesco want to open a new super­mar­ket) was squat­ted. On Tues­day after­noon, act­ing on a ‘tip off’ from a neigh­bour, armed police entered the premised on the pre­text of look­ing for ille­gal drugs. There were a total of three police cars, a police van, and at least eight offi­cers. The premis­es were searched, but no ille­gal sub­stances (bar a super­mar­ket trol­ley that was already on site) were found. The build­ing is now being turned into a social cen­tre. Tonight (Tues­day) there will be a big clear up, before the space is spruced up with some fur­ni­ture. There are plans for a cin­e­ma cor­ner, an activ­i­ty cor­ner, and a space to hang out and drink cof­fee and tea.

Please come and help with the clear up or donate some fur­ni­ture, rugs, etc.

The squat or the social cen­tre are not con­nect­ed to the No Tesco on Mill Road cam­paign, but will cre­ate a more use­ful, pos­i­tive role for the build­ing.

http://millroadsocialcentre.wordpress.com/
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Womin­Space Evic­tion, the sto­ry of a squat­ted social cen­ter in East Lon­don

The short-lived but infa­mous Womin­Space Social Cen­ter by Mare Street was, after a suc­cess­ful resis­tance, and some weeks of ten­sion, even­tu­al­ly evict­ed on the 9th of May.

For the past three months the Womin­Space social cen­ter has host­ed amongst oth­er things, weld­ing, sten­cil-mak­ing, herbal skill-share, fem­i­nist singing work­shops, pho­to­shop and pira­cy, and a women’s direct action group. There has been a DIY Womin’s Health week­end, reg­u­lar café and kids space. The space has been open to all self-iden­ti­fied women and trans peo­ple and aimed to be respect­ful to each individual’s auton­o­my and expe­ri­ence.

Although we man­aged to resist the first evic­tion with wider sup­port from friends and the North East Lon­don Squat­ters Net­work, we have now lost our house by the canal in East Lon­don.

Out of expe­ri­ences with the Womin­Space it was decid­ed to form an anar­cha-fem­i­nist col­lec­tive, open to all self-iden­ti­fied women and trans peo­ple. If you want to be part of the ear­ly stages of form­ing this col­lec­tive, get in touch: womenorganise@yahoo.co.uk

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New Name, New Web­site, Old Threat

Lon­don’s lat­est social cen­tre has final­ly giv­en itself a name, set up its own web­site and received a vis­it from the own­ers say­ing “get out!”

Squat­ted over the long Ester week­end in March the new social cen­tre opened its doors on the 11th April for the Inter­na­tion­al Days of Action For Squats and Autonomous Spaces.

Among the activ­i­ties over that week­end was a Squat­ters Estate Agency which attract­ed the atten­tion of the main­stream media.

Oper­at­ing with an open col­lec­tive in the style of the ram­pART social cen­tre that pro­ceed­ed it, the new social cen­tre took some time to reach con­sen­sus on a name. Among those in the run­ning were Two Point Two (indi­cat­ing only its lin­eage and lega­cy in rela­tion to the ram­pART), Front Line (indi­cat­ing it’s strate­gic posi­tion between Shored­itch and the expand­ing devel­op­ments of the city), The Lib­er­ty of Nor­ton Fol­gate (a ref­er­ence to a his­toric ‘free­space’) and Sod The Rich (a handy ana­gram of Shored­itch). How­ev­er in the end the name Bowl Court was agreed, which sim­ply and unor­rig­i­nal­ly refers to the lit­tle cob­bled street the build­ing is locat­ed in.

Finaly giv­en a name a new web­site was set up (see http://bowlcourt.co.nr) but no soon­er than the site cre­at­ed, the own­ers of the build­ing put a down­er of things by drop­ping round to say ‘get the fuck off my land’.

Need­less to say, this is far from the end of the sto­ry, per­haps just the begin­ning, and now is the time to get involved.

The loca­tion is amaz­ing and offers an unre­peat­able oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with the local com­mu­ni­ty against the mas­sive wave of devel­op­ment threat­en­ing to sweep away much of Shored­itch.

The col­lec­tive meets every mon­day at 7pm. You will find Bowl Court off Plough Yard which is next to the Drunk­en Mon­key at the junc­tion of Shored­itch Hight St and Great East­ern Street. (See the map here http://tinyurl.com/4xeq2q)

If you need to con­tact us, email bowlcourt@riseup.net or phone 0208 8192596

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Free Skool event this thurs­day

thurs­day 22nd from 7pm onwards peo­ple will be com­ing togeth­er at bowl court social cen­tre to dis­cuss the con­cept of a free skool and how this could be put into prac­tice with­in the space.

so, this is a call for peo­ple who want to share knowl­edge and skills to come and get involved. through the insti­tu­tion­al­i­sa­tion of edu­ca­tion, knowl­edge is tak­en out of the hands of the mass­es. a free skool aims to reclaim that edu­ca­tion for all through shar­ing the­o­ret­i­cal and prac­ti­cal knowl­edge. this can involve any­thing from a one off work­shop on build­ing a bicy­cle pow­ered wash­ing machine to indi­vid­u­als with shared inter­ests meet­ing on a reg­u­lar basis. come along to bowl court social cen­tre (6 bowl court, off plough yard, next to the great east­ern street/shoreditch high street junc­tion) at 7pm on thurs­day if you are inter­est­ed. if you cant make it but would like to get involved email us at bowlcourt@riseup.net

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Bowl Court social cen­tre under threat

21.05.2008
the new social cen­tre in shored­itch was served papers today for a court hear­ing on the 4th june. the own­ers ham­mer­son have no imme­di­ate inter­est in the build­ing which they have yet to secure plan­ning con­sent to demol­ish for their huge rede­vel­ope­ment plans for the area. the devel­op­ments are the biggest in lon­don since the cre­ation of dock­land and canary warf.

the social cen­tre which was opened last month for the days of action for squats and autonomous spaces is plan­ning to fight this threat loud­ly through the main­stream media and to con­tribute as much as pos­si­ble to the cam­paigns against the bish­ops place devel­ope­ment dur­ing the time left in the build­ing.

ham­mer­son is a mas­sive prop­er­ty com­pa­ny con­cen­trat­ing most­ly on retail and office parks. they are partcu­lar­ly active in the uk, france and ger­many.

more info soon.…

if you can help the social cen­tre go on the offen­sive on this, please get in touch

bowl­court at rise­up dot net
http://bowlcourt.co.nr

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East Lon­don Against Gen­tri­fi­ca­tion: Two Events this week

Both Wednes­day the 21st and Sat­ur­day the 24th will see two events held in East lon­don host­ing inter­na­tion­al activists from the Van­cou­ver Anti Pover­ty Com­mit­tee, (Cana­da) and the Move­ment for Jus­tice in El Bar­rio (Harlem, NYC) both fight­ing gen­trif­ca­tion and dis­place­ment. See details below.

Van­cov­er Anti Pover­ty Com­mit­tee Fight the Olympics: Pub­lic Talk on Wednes­day the 21st of May 8pm

Action Eas­t­end and Lon­don Coali­tion Against Pover­ty (LCP) are organ­is­ing a joint pub­lic meet­ing for a Cana­di­an com­rade involved in the Anti Pover­ty Com­mit­tee in Cana­da and anti-olympic sol­i­dar­i­ty there, she is going to be in Lon­don on the Wednes­day 21st May
and is going to intro­duce the ‘Five Ring Cir­cus’ film about the trav­es­ty of the 2010 Win­ter Olympics and is will­ing to dis­cuss and answer any ques­tions peo­ple have.
Please feel wel­come to attend and please dis­trib­ute as wide­ly as pos­si­ble.

Venue is at
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=bowl%20court%2C%20shoreditch&ie=UTF‑8&oe=utf‑8&client=firefox&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&um=1&sa=N&tab=wl

Film Trail­er
http://www.thefiveringcircus.com/

Anti Pover­ty Com­mit­tee
http://apc.resist.ca/

Move­ment for Jus­tice in El Bar­rio: Gen­tri­fi­ca­tion from Harlem to Dal­ston
Pub­lic Talk Sat­ur­day the 24th of May

Juan Haro, a speak­er from Move­ment for Jus­tice in El Bar­rio will talk in Dal­ston, about their strug­gle against dis­place­ment by gen­tri­fi­ca­tion in Harlem, New York city. On Sat­ur­day the 24th of May @ Pass­ing Clouds, on Rich­mond Rd, just off Kings­land road in Dal­ston, 10 mins from Dal­ston Kings­land Sta­tion. Bus­es: 149, 242, 243, 67.Free or dona­tion entry to talk from 7.00pm.

Fol­lowed by Latin bands and DJs host­ed by Movimien­tos at around 9pm “From folk­loric to elec­tron­ic Movimien­tos is the sound of Lon­don’s Latin alter­na­tive”. (£5 entry)

Dal­ston, like many oth­er parts of Lon­don is under­go­ing devel­op­ment that will mean rent ris­es for ten­ants already strug­gling to pay extor­tion­ate Lon­don rents. When an area becomes appeal­ing for investors and “regen­er­a­tion” it’s those peo­ple with mon­ey who end up enjoy­ing the new hous­ing, expen­sive cafes and shops, and the peo­ple with less mon­ey who end up hav­ing to move fur­ther away from the cen­tre of the city or who, if they stay, lose the shops, cafes and resources they rely on. Move­ment for Jus­tice, the orga­ni­za­tion of ten­ants in Harlem, New York that have been strug­gling against the land­lords that want to price them out of their area say;

“This dis­place­ment is cre­at­ed by the greed, ambi­tion and vio­lence of a glob­al empire of mon­ey that seeks to take total con­trol of all the land, labor and life on earth. Here in El Bar­rio (East Harlem, New York City), land­lords, mul­ti-nation­al cor­po­ra­tions and local, state and fed­er­al politi­cians and insti­tu­tions want to force upon us their cul­ture of mon­ey, they want to dis­place poor fam­i­lies and rent their apart­ments to rich peo­ple, white peo­ple with mon­ey. They want to change the look of our neigh­bor­hood, with the excuse of “devel­op­ing the com­mu­ni­ty.”

The talk will explore issues around resist­ing gen­tri­fi­ca­tion and the mod­el of orga­ni­za­tion that Move­ment for Jus­tice have used to work with each oth­er – an inspir­ing and edu­ca­tion­al exam­ple from across the Atlantic that we could learn from in Lon­don.

“Togeth­er, we make our dig­ni­ty resis­tance and we fight back against the actions of cap­i­tal­ist land­lords and multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions who are dis­plac­ing poor fam­i­lies from our neigh­bor­hood. We fight back local­ly and across bor­ders. We fight back against local politi­cians that refuse to gov­ern by obey­ing the will of the peo­ple. We fight back against the gov­ern­ment insti­tu­tions that enforce a glob­al eco­nom­ic, social and polit­i­cal sys­tem that seeks to destroy human­i­ty.”

Talk orga­nized by Hack­ney Sol­i­dar­i­ty Net­work, Hack­ney Inde­pen­dent, Haringey Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group and Lon­don Coali­tion Against Pover­ty.

Con­tact: hackneysolidarity@hotmail.co.uk

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Also for news on what’s hap­pen­ing at the Spike squat­ted cen­tre in South Lon­don, see http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20636
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Free Kaff in Brighton

Res­i­dents and sup­port­ers of 88 Lon­don Road, Brighton — the for­mer Methodist church where a recent evic­tion attempt was suc­cess­ful­ly resist­ed — have been hold­ing fre­quent free food stalls like this one on Sun­day.

For a report on the attempt­ed evic­tion, see: http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20653

LOCAL SUPPORT

Since the events of a week ago, when a large num­ber of Brighton res­i­dents wit­nessed the day-long attempt­ed evic­tion of the squat­ters and the sto­ry was fea­tured on the front page of the local evening paper, sup­port for the squat­ters has been grow­ing, with a lot of pos­i­tive feed­back, offers of help and dona­tions of food from local res­i­dents and shops.

METHODISTS — A DODGY CORPORATION

Few peo­ple seem to be con­vinced by the Methodist Church’s posi­tion that it ‘needs’ the build­ing back again, espe­cial­ly as it has been left emp­ty for sev­er­al years already. The Methodist Church is now so rich and prof­itable that it has been forced to reg­is­ter as a cor­po­ra­tion rather than a char­i­ty and the job of the trustees is to make as much prof­it for the cor­po­ra­tion as they can, which they do by mak­ing the usu­al dodgy invest­ments with a few lame excus­es for fail­ing to drop these. Of its invest­ments in Nes­tle, for instance, it says: “[Nestle’s] oper­a­tions are not uneth­i­cal in a way to pre­clude invest­ment.” Since it also invests in Rio Tin­to and BP, one won­ders just what a com­pa­ny might have to do to be con­sid­ered unsuit­able for Methodist invest­ment. A quick look at the make-up of the Cen­tral Finance Board of the Methodist Church sheds some light on the sit­u­a­tion — the board includes for­mer man­ag­ing direc­tor of BAE Sys­tems Pen­sions fund, John Gib­bon, along with accoun­tants, tax experts and oth­er finan­cial high-fly­ers from a range of pri­vate com­pa­nies.

NEW LONDON ROAD — BRIGHT OR BLIGHT?

It seems like­ly that the Methodist Church hopes to cash in on invest­ment pro­pos­als for ‘revi­tal­is­ing’ the healthy mix of local shops along Lon­don Road by demol­ish­ing them and cre­at­ing a so-called ‘Bright New Lon­don Road’, http://www.brightnewlondonroad.co.uk. The only non-nego­tiable part of this plan appears to be a Tesco super­store and car park. See http://www.transitionbrightonandhove.org.uk/2008/05/friday-9th-may-at-7pm-community-base.html for more infor­ma­tion on these pro­pos­als. Many of the local peo­ple and shop­keep­ers who have giv­en their sup­port to the Lon­don Road squat­ters have also expressed seri­ous con­cerns about these devel­op­ment plans.

COMMUNITY BUSINESS AS USUAL

While the res­i­dents of 88 Lon­don Road remain in the church, they plan to con­tin­ue to use it as a com­mu­ni­ty space and to run their ‘free kaff’ with sur­plus food which would oth­er­wise have end­ed up as methane-pro­duc­ing land­fill.

PRE-EVICTION CALL-OUT

If you’re in the Brighton area, please keep an eye on http://www.indymedia.org.uk for news of fur­ther evic­tion attempts. If you can get your­selves down to the church to assist and resist when it’s need­ed, this would be much appre­ci­at­ed.

Cheers!

http://www.myspace.com/88londonroadsquat
our e‑mail is 88londonroad@live.co.uk. please get in touch if you wan­na get involved in any way, shape, or form!