Kew Bridge Eco Village

“On June 6th 2009, near­ly a hun­dred activists con­verged on a piece of derelict land at Kew Bridge in south west Lon­don to cre­ate an eco-vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty based entire­ly on sus­tain­able tech­nol­o­gy and con­struc­tion tech­niques.”

From the Eco Vil­lage face­book group

Trowel Ninja at Kew Bridge Eco Village“On June 6th 2009, near­ly a hun­dred activists con­verged on a piece of derelict land at Kew Bridge in south west Lon­don to cre­ate an eco-vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty based entire­ly on sus­tain­able tech­nol­o­gy and con­struc­tion tech­niques.”

From the Eco Vil­lage face­book group

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=logo#/group.php?sid=5ed8b99539a428b28f9abf3dc54ec246&gid=88020757939&ref=search

Last Sat­ur­day (the 13th of June) we went to check out the Kew Eco Village…we arrived and were wel­comed in…some peo­ple had come to work and oth­ers to just check it out.

The site, about an acre, has appar­ent­ly been emp­ty for over two decades and used to house a Scot­tish Wid­ows build­ing. All that remains is a small out house and a large pile of rub­ble close to the entrance on Kew Bridge Road. We climed the mound which includ­ed large sheets of met­al and an old pub sign (imme­di­at­ly next door is a pub) to sur­vey the site. Behind us was a car­a­van and a wood pile. Ahead towards the riv­er and Bridge, is most­ly like a medow with a plas­tic cov­ered struc­ture where peo­ple can relax and sosialise and behind that scat­tered tents amidst the mead­ow. To the right is the kitchen and wash­ing up area (All water has to be bought from off-site) and the remain­ing con­crete build­ing that peo­ple seem to sleep in and is to be the ‘safe’ for food and tools and such-like. We elect­ed to muck in and were put on road-build­ing duty which includ­ed a dis­abled access ramp (slight­ly nar­row­er than planned due to a sur­prise uniden­ti­fied pipe).

We also dug some gar­den planters in using old beds. This includ­ed smash­ing down rocks and sift­ing rub­ble to make usable soil. Oth­ers were using rocks and bricks to out­line oth­er guardens. Locals came to chat, find out what was going on and to have a look around. Kids turned up to help and hang out and to dec­o­rate the shel­ter with graf­fit­ti. There were tons of bees also in the yel­low wild­flow­ers. We were offered food froom the kitchen and there was water and, of course, tea .

“Come, be a part of this eco-vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty!

This eco-vil­lage occu­pa­tion is inspired by cam­paigns like The Land is Ours which cam­paigns peace­ful­ly for access to the land, its resources, and the deci­sion-mak­ing process­es affect­ing them, for every­one, irre­spec­tive of race, gen­der or age. for more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it:

We now have a media web­site — http://ecocamp.info/ Its in its ear­ly stages but check out the fan­tas­tic video episodes of our first few days!

Please post any seeds or post­cards or any­thing you like to:

The Eco Vil­lage
2 Kew Bridge Rd
Brent­ford
TW8 0JF

tele­phone: 07967864370”

see also

http://www.hounslowchronicle.co.uk/west-london-news/local-hounslow-news/2009/06/12/kew-bridge-squatters-creating-eco-village-109642–23865859/

Email Con­tact email: m@s‑kollective.com