Graffiti in support of green wedge — Somerset

THE fight against hun­dreds of new homes on a green swathe in Taunton has turned nasty.

A group call­ing itself The Green Wedgers has claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty for graf­fi­ti around the town cen­tre.

Oth­er cam­paign­ers oppos­ing up to 750 homes ear­marked for the area in the Draft Core Strat­e­gy have dis­tanced them­selves from the mil­i­tants.

After large ‘Save Vivary Wedge’ graf­fi­ti appeared on walls in Bath Place and High Street, the Coun­ty Gazette received an e‑mail from The Green Wedgers.

Graffiti in support of green wedgeTHE fight against hun­dreds of new homes on a green swathe in Taunton has turned nasty.

A group call­ing itself The Green Wedgers has claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty for graf­fi­ti around the town cen­tre.

Oth­er cam­paign­ers oppos­ing up to 750 homes ear­marked for the area in the Draft Core Strat­e­gy have dis­tanced them­selves from the mil­i­tants.

After large ‘Save Vivary Wedge’ graf­fi­ti appeared on walls in Bath Place and High Street, the Coun­ty Gazette received an e‑mail from The Green Wedgers.

It said: “Our com­mu­ni­ty has fought devel­op­ers for decades, so don’t think we’re going to just hand over the green wedge with­out a fight.

“We’re will­ing to do what­ev­er it takes to save our green land.

“While above­ground groups may soon be accept­ing defeat against this project, we’re just get­ting start­ed.”

Town cen­tre man­ag­er Gra­ham Love said the van­dals were hit­ting Taunton’s appeal to shop­pers and vis­i­tors.

He added: “It’s dis­ap­point­ing a local pres­sure group has cho­sen to deface the town in this way and cause the local author­i­ty and busi­ness­es sub­stan­tial costs in clean­ing up the mess.”

A police spokesman said graf­fi­ti con­sti­tut­ed crim­i­nal dam­age and any com­plaints would be inves­ti­gat­ed.

Mike Threlfall, of Save the Vivary Green Wedge cam­paign, said: “We’re a peace­ful, friend­ly protest and con­demn such van­dal­ism.”

Taunton Deane Coun­cil leader Cllr Ross Hen­ley said he wel­comed people’s views about the Draft Core Strat­e­gy.

But he added: “Spray paint­ing slo­gans around the town does noth­ing to advance rea­soned debate – it’s child­ish, dam­ages the local envi­ron­ment and is expen­sive to clean up.

“This smacks of point­less dam­age rather than democ­ra­cy.”

*MARK For­mosa, Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­lia­men­tary Can­di­date for Taunton Deane, has been help­ing col­lect sig­na­tures on a peti­tion against build­ing new homes on the Vivary Green Wedge.

http://www.thisisthewestcountry.co.uk/news/5038741.Anti_Green_Wedge_development_group_s_graffiti/

Coal Action Scotland InfoTour dates

The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is going on tour! Check our list of dates below to see if we’re com­ing any­where near you. If you’d like us to to a talk where you are and its not on the list, email us at main­shill [at] riseup.net and we’ll get back to you as soon as pos­si­ble.

10th March
Brighton
7pm at the Cow­ley Club
Lon­don Road

The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is going on tour! Check our list of dates below to see if we’re com­ing any­where near you. If you’d like us to to a talk where you are and its not on the list, email us at main­shill [at] riseup.net and we’ll get back to you as soon as pos­si­ble.

10th March
Brighton
7pm at the Cow­ley Club
Lon­don Road

12th March
Leeds
7pm at the Band­stand Com­mu­ni­ty Allot­ments
Wood­house Ridge, Mean­wood Road
15th March
Brad­ford
7pm at the 1 in 12 Club
21–23 Albion Street

16th March
Lan­cast­er
7pm at the Lan­cast­er Action Resource Cen­tre
78a Pen­ny Street

Lappersfort Forest Evicted

5th March -
Yes­ter­day morn­ing the Brugge police force emp­tied Lap­pers­fort For­est. All envi­ron­men­tal activists who had chained them­selves into tree hous­es and tun­nels have been tak­en. Five police­men have been injured.

Lappersfort treesLappersfort graffiti5th March -
Yes­ter­day morn­ing the Brugge police force emp­tied Lap­pers­fort For­est. All envi­ron­men­tal activists who had chained them­selves into tree hous­es and tun­nels have been tak­en. Five police­men have been injured.
The threat­ened land is the prop­er­ty of Fab­ri­com and has been ful­ly occu­pied since Sep­tem­ber 2008. Peace talks with the own­ers and a judge over the 3.2 hectares of land (Which has plans to be turned into indus­try and office ground) had been entered into to reach an agree­ment but had failed.

The activists chained them­selves to the trees in the morn­ing and chant­ed slo­gans as large num­bers of police mobilised and entered the for­est. 30 police con­sta­bles cor­doned off the area while 20 oth­ers — with spe­cial­ist con­trac­tors — worked to remove the activists.

Accord­ing to a spokesman for the Brugge police force 25 peo­ple have been obtained. Because some of the activists did not want to give their iden­ti­ties, immi­gra­tion con­trol has become involved. One activist has been tak­en to a prison on an immi­gra­tion mat­ter.
The activists who gave their iden­ti­ties will be released after 12 hours.
A large num­ber of trees were cut down in a short space of time. The tree hous­es were also removed. Accord­ing to the police, by yes­ter­day evening 80% of the area to be ‘devel­oped’ had been laid flat.

“Fab­ri­com claim the social impor­tance of serv­ing the com­mu­ni­ty and try to give them­selves a green image” Says for­est activist Robin “What they do in real­i­ty is put prof­its before nature and the pop­u­la­tion, of India the Ama­zon Rain­forests and in Bel­gium. We find the increase of this type of mega-multi­na­tion­al par­tic­u­lar­ly upset­ting. They claim to be green, but where we see a for­est, they see pure­ly a spec­u­la­tion ground.”

—

4.3.2010
The evic­tion of the Lap­pers­fort has start­ed. At 7h55 today, the police entered the for­est. Police is all over the for­est and a cher­ry-pick­er is in front of the for­est.

13 peo­ple have been arrest­ed while 1 remains locked on to what seems to be a 400kg con­crete block. 1 of the arrest­ed occu­piers has been trans­port­ed to jail as they are believed to either be involved in an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion or be ille­gal in the EU.

The evic­tion is almost end­ed. One activist is still in the fortress. The lock-on team is busy with open­ing the lock-on. It seems to be a 400kg armed, extra-strong con­crete.

There is a sol­i­dar­i­ty action on the cor­ner where 4 peo­ple pushed through the police lines but were imme­di­ate­ly arrest­ed.

Back­ground at http://lappersfort.freehostia.com/en/background.htm

Transition Heathrow turns wasteland into community garden

1/3/2010
Com­mu­ni­ty activists from the group Tran­si­tion Heathrow have tak­en over an aban­doned mar­ket gar­den threat­ened by the third run­way. Around lunchtime, 20 peo­ple “swooped” on the land in Sip­son, one of the vil­lages due for demo­li­tion if the third run­way at Heathrow goes ahead.

1/3/2010
Com­mu­ni­ty activists from the group Tran­si­tion Heathrow have tak­en over an aban­doned mar­ket gar­den threat­ened by the third run­way. Around lunchtime, 20 peo­ple “swooped” on the land in Sip­son, one of the vil­lages due for demo­li­tion if the third run­way at Heathrow goes ahead.

More pho­tos on Tran­si­tion Heathrow’s Flickr stream.

After secur­ing the site, the group imme­di­ate­ly informed their new neigh­bours and local res­i­dents of their inten­tion to reopen the old mar­ket gar­den for the ben­e­fit of the local com­mu­ni­ty. The ‘Grow Heathrow’ project aims to encour­age and sup­port local­ly grown pro­duce in an area that once had some of the most fer­tile soils in Britain.

Tran­si­tion Heathrow has launched the project to high­light the need for a com­mu­ni­ty con­trolled food sup­ply in order to remain resilient to the impacts of peak oil and cli­mate change. It intends to use the old mar­ket gar­den not only for grow­ing, but also for activ­i­ties such as bike work­shops, clothes mak­ing, sol­i­dar­i­ty sup­port for local work­ers and direct action work­shops for peo­ple try­ing to stop the third run­way.

Tran­si­tion Heathrow mem­ber and local res­i­dent Joe Rake, described the events of the day. “Around lunchtime, a group of us walked onto the site. Once we had secured the gate, we set about telling local res­i­dents why we were there and invit­ing them to join in. We also had to start tidy­ing up as it appeared to have been used for scrap­ping cars. Since the last ten­ants were evict­ed, the site has attract­ed unsavoury char­ac­ters, so we want­ed to restart the mar­ket gar­den for the good of the local com­mu­ni­ty.”

Many of those involved in the ‘swoop’ see today’s action as a pos­i­tive way of resist­ing the third run­way whilst build­ing an alter­na­tive com­mu­ni­ty solu­tion in its place. Heathrow res­i­dent Amy Sum­mer said “We’ve been fight­ing the threat of the third run­way for years, and its blight­ed our com­mu­ni­ty. This kind of action not only helps stop expan­sion but also helps regen­er­ate the area, pro­vid­ing local skills, green jobs and organ­ic pro­duce instead.”

“This form of direct action is just as impor­tant as sit­ting on a run­way, blockad­ing the bull­doz­ers or strik­ing for more green jobs. There’s no point in grow­ing your own veg if it’s going to be cov­ered in tar­mac by BAA. At the same time there’s no point in com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance if there’s no com­mu­ni­ty left to defend. We have to do both,” she added.

Livesey Occupiers Re-Open Community Museum

1.3.2010
Fam­i­lies flock to the Livesey Muse­um for the re-open­ing of the for­mer chil­dren’s muse­um to mark two years since South­wark Coun­cil shut the build­ing down

Livesey1.3.2010
Fam­i­lies flock to the Livesey Muse­um for the re-open­ing of the for­mer chil­dren’s muse­um to mark two years since South­wark Coun­cil shut the build­ing down

It was a wet Sun­day morn­ing in South Lon­don as com­mu­ni­ty activists scur­ried round the beau­ti­ful Livesey muse­um on the Old Kent Rd, putting the final touch­es to the space for a free fam­i­ly fun­day.

Police had called the occu­piers the day before stat­ing their intent to arrest peo­ple open­ing the build­ing, for bur­glary. After being being told that such arrests would be ille­gal, they rang back to say they would shut the build­ing down on grounds of health and safe­ty, and also take details of any­one going into the build­ing . If details were refused, the indi­vid­ual would be arrest­ed. Again ille­gal police work.

The fire ser­vice arrived at 11, and gave the thumbs up for the build­ing to be used.

And then sud­den­ly the fam­i­ly rush began!

———-

Two years ago South­wark coun­cil shut the Livesey down as part of a bud­get cut. The cost of run­ning the build­ing was less than mon­ey spent on coun­cil lunch­es. The coun­cil then tried to sell the build­ing only to find that in the deeds George Livesey left the Livesey for the peo­ple of Peck­ham and Cam­ber­well. As a trustee they had no right to sell it.

After a com­mu­ni­ty cam­paign to save the chil­dren’s muse­um by the Friends of Livesey, the coun­cil accept­ed a pro­pos­al from The­atre Peck­ham to use the space for rehearsals. Two years lat­er noth­ing had hap­pened in the build­ing.

And so it was occu­pied six weeks ago by a group who want to see the build­ing used by the com­mu­ni­ty.

A pub­lic meet­ing was held with 40 peo­ple and there was con­sen­sus to hold a re-open­ing for local fam­i­lies.

After two weeks of orga­niz­ing fam­i­lies flocked from all around to attend the day of activ­i­ties: veg­etable grow­ing work­shops, a trea­sure hunt, sto­ry­telling, arts and crafts, a the­atre work­shop and bicy­cle main­te­nance.

Around 80 peo­ple attend­ed, and the kids had a ball espe­cial­ly on the trea­sure island. The muse­um came back to life, and was placed back into use for its orig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ty pur­pose.

Around 2.30pm the fire ser­vice returned to see what we would do if there was a fire. They walked around to see every­thing was fine and then let every­one play on the fire engine. Hoses and sirens went off, and there was a new activ­i­ty for the event.

One police, and a com­mu­ni­ty police­man turned up and hang around at the gate for a while, after being refused entry after ask­ing to see inside for poten­tial crime. So the phone calls the day before seemed to be an attempt at intim­i­da­tion.

So the Livsey Muse­um was shut to the com­mu­ni­ty two years ago, and yes­ter­day the com­mu­ni­ty re-opened it, to have a bril­liant day with the fire ser­vice being co-opt­ed into the fun.

With a court date immi­nent, we will see what hap­pens next at the Livesey but for now it is re-open and in the hands of the com­mu­ni­ty.

Lappersfort Forest Occupation expected to be evicted this week!

Updates Thurs­day 4th: the evic­tion has begun since this morn­ing; it is still unclear how far the evic­tion is going, and if there are still peo­ple present to resist. this night at 8pm man­i­fes­ta­tion in Bruges, at ‘t Zand.

Updates Thurs­day 4th: the evic­tion has begun since this morn­ing; it is still unclear how far the evic­tion is going, and if there are still peo­ple present to resist. this night at 8pm man­i­fes­ta­tion in Bruges, at ‘t Zand. Wednes­day 3rd: yes­ter­day, the fed­er­al police was seen in the neigh­bour­hood of the Lap­pers­for­est. Sev­er­al peo­ple were chased when they want­ed to leave or enter the for­est. There is con­stant patrolling in the sur­round­ing of the for­est. At this moment (Wednes­day 8:00), every­thing seems qui­et in the for­est.

The evic­tion is still expect­ed to hap­pen this week.

—

Accord­ing to a very reli­able source, the occu­pied part of the Lap­pers­for­est will be cut down this week. We don’t know the exact date (yet), but the evic­tion and chop­ping will prob­a­bly start at the begin­ning of the week. (This week!) Anoth­er indi­ca­tion is the fact that police have vis­it­ed the for­est three times last week.

What can you do?
— come to the for­est as soon as pos­si­ble
— pre­pare sol­i­dar­i­ty actions
— pre­pare actions at branch offices of GDF Suez, Fab­ri­com, Elec­tra­bel…
— send dis­pleased reac­tions to press and oth­er media.

If you come to join the evic­tion resis­tance, bring a rain­coat, warm clothes, a sleep­ing bag and maybe some blan­kets.

If you can’t make it to the inside of the for­est, come to the green bridge of Steen­brugge (on the road from Oost­kamp to Bruges), where there will be protest actions from the very start of the evic­tion. At night we gath­er at 8 pm on ‘t Zand in Bruges, for a demon­stra­tion.

No com­pro­mise in defence of the Earth!

–
http://lappersfort.freehostia.com

- E‑Mail: mgriks(at)gmail.com Web­site: http://www.ourmediaindymedia.blogspot.com

Climate Camp Invades Lewes Tesco

28.02.2010

Lewes Tesco protest28.02.2010
Cli­mate change activists teamed up with local res­i­dents to invade the Tesco super­store in Lewes, East Sus­sex on Sat­ur­day in protest at plans to increase the size of the super­mar­ket by 50%. More than 80 pro­test­ers took part, enter­ing the store and embark­ing on a game of Tesco Whirl. The idea is to grab a trol­ley keep it emp­ty and form up with oth­ers to cre­ate a giant con­ga chain.

The point of not actu­al­ly shop­ping was to high­light that for every £3.00 spent on retail in Lewes, £2.00 is spent in Tesco.

By increas­ing the size of the store, mon­ey will be drained from the inde­pen­dent shops, harm­ing the town’s local econ­o­my. But police had received a tip off about the action and were on hand to pre­vent some pro­test­ers enter­ing the shop while eject­ing those who attempt­ed to form a chain. Still a chain of 10 trol­leys at a time did form.

As activists were thrown out of the store a par­ty formed at the entrance with music and danc­ing from activists in endan­gered ani­mal masks.

Cli­mate Camp activist and Lewes res­i­dent Mari­na Pep­per said: “Tesco is more expen­sive than peo­ple realise, thanks to their mis­lead­ing adver­tis­ing cam­paigns. They also rip off farm­ers and destroy local com­mu­ni­ties by under­cut­ting and bank­rupt­ing com­pe­ti­tion lead­ing to high unem­ploy­ment and board­ed up town cen­tres.

“Tesco has a strong foothold in Lewes. It’s only the robust­ness of the local econ­o­my that has saved it so far. But these expan­sion plans are mad­ness and could spell the end, destroy­ing so much that our town holds dear – name­ly our inde­pen­dent shops which pro­vide us with choic­es as to how we shop and what we buy.

“This action today was only the launch of a cam­paign that will see Cli­mate Camp work­ing side by side with com­mu­ni­ty groups to ensure one way or anoth­er Tesco’s growth plans are thwart­ed. We implore peo­ple to con­tact their local coun­cilors, espe­cial­ly those on the plan­ning com­mit­tee and tell them a big­ger Tesco is unwel­come here. Ever y lit­tle extra will hurt.”

The activ­i­ties of mas­sive super­mar­kets like Tesco involve scan­dalous waste, pol­lu­tion and envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion.

Super­mar­ket food trav­els vast dis­tances, prod­ucts are over pack­aged and cus­tomers trav­el ever greater dis­tances once local shops are dri­ven out of busi­ness. This leads to an increase in road con­ges­tion, acci­dents, noise, air pol­lu­tion and CO2 emis­sions which con­tribute to cli­mate change.

Super­mar­ket demands are also behind the con­tin­u­ing indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of agri­cul­ture. Big farm­ers are get­ting big­ger to sur­vive while small farm­ers are going bust. This leads to increased dis­ease among live­stock and cru­el fac­to­ry farm prac­tices.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion.

Tesco stores erode local choice as small­er, inde­pen­dent shops strug­gle to com­pete. Inde­pen­dent stores in the UK shut at the rate of 2,000 a year in recent years. Over 17,000 inde­pen­dent shops closed in Eng­land and Wales last year.

Large super­mar­kets like Tesco also:
• Siphon mon­ey away from local com­mu­ni­ties and towards dis­tant cor­po­ra­tions
• Increase traf­fic and con­ges­tion from lor­ry move­ments and cus­tomers
• Destroy local jobs and under­mine local job mar­kets
• Every large out­let caus­es the net loss of 276 local jobs on aver­age
• Gen­er­ate waste and over-pack­age their prod­ucts
• Exploit sup­pli­ers and dam­age the envi­ron­ment
• Cyn­i­cal­ly manip­u­late prices to fleece shop­pers

Tesco is the largest retail­er in the UK:
• Over £1 in every £7 (14.3%) of UK retail sales is spent at Tesco
• It has tak­ings of more than £1 bil­lion a week
• It made prof­its of over £3 bil­lion last year
• It has £30 mil­lion turnover in Lewes com­pared to £17m for all oth­er shops

southcoast@climatecamp.org.uk
http://climatecamp.org.uk/get-involved/local-groups/south-coast

EARTH FIRST! ITALY GATHERING, 1–4 APRIL 2010

(soon it’ll be trans­lat­ed in eng­lish)
EARTH FIRST! ITALIA GATHERING
Narni (Umbria), 1–4 Aprile 2010

TRE GIORNI AD ALTA SOSTENIBILITA’ CONDIVIDENDO ESPERIENZE, IDEE ED EMOZIONI.

(soon it’ll be trans­lat­ed in eng­lish)
EARTH FIRST! ITALIA GATHERING
Narni (Umbria), 1–4 Aprile 2010

TRE GIORNI AD ALTA SOSTENIBILITA’ CONDIVIDENDO ESPERIENZE, IDEE ED EMOZIONI.

Allog­gio: L’evento si ter­rà all’interno di una grande fat­to­ria con ani­mali, orto bio­logi­co, fiu­mi­ci­at­to­lo e bosco. All’interno del bosco ver­rà allesti­to lo spazio tende che dovran­no quin­di essere por­tate da casa.
Ali­men­tazione: Il cibo (pran­zo e cena) ver­rà cuci­na­to dal­la fat­to­ria e sarà veg­e­tar­i­ano ed il più pos­si­bile bio­logi­co e a km0.
Work­shop e attiv­ità: Ver­ran­no orga­niz­za­ti work­shop e attiv­ità a parte­ci­pazione volon­taria. Tra questi: escur­sioni nei boschi, tree climb­ing, moun­tain bike, azioni di dis­tur­bo alla cac­cia e altro anco­ra. (a presto il pro­gram­ma det­taglia­to).
Pro­gram­ma serale e musi­ca: La sera ci sarà occa­sione di cantare, suonare e bal­lare. Se sei un musicista/artista e vuoi pro­por­ti all’interno del pro­gram­ma serale puoi man­dar­ci una email già da ora.
Pren­di parte all’azione: Ci saran­no anche momen­ti più prati­ci in cui piani­fi­care cam­pagne e azioni a liv­el­lo locale. Se sei inter­es­sato ad entrare in EF! sei già dei nos­tri!.

TU!
Siamo tut­ti parte del­lo staff. Il suc­ces­so dell’evento dipen­derà anche da te. Ogni mat­ti­na ci sarà un breve meet­ing in cui dis­cutere e gestire la gior­na­ta. Se hai dei con­sigli o vuoi pro­porre un’attività puoi man­dar­ci una mail da subito o pro­por­la diret­ta­mente al raduno.

PORTA CON TE…Porta con te ten­da e sac­co a pelo inver­nale. Ti ricor­diamo che la tem­per­atu­ra all’interno del bosco potrà scen­dere durante la notte moti­vo per cui è bene por­tar­si vesti­ti e maglioni pesan­ti. Ricor­dati delle scarpe da trekking ed un coltelli­no svizze­ro. Se hai la pos­si­bil­ità di por­tar­ti la tua moun­tain bike fal­lo!

DOVE
Il pos­to è vici­no a Narni, in provin­cia di Terni, Umbria. Alta sosteni­bil­ità sig­nifi­ca anche evitare di pren­dere
l’auto se non nec­es­saria, moti­vo per cui ti con­sigliamo di rag­giun­gere il pos­to
con altri mezzi (treno o pull­man).

CANI
I cani sono bene accetti. Nonos­tante ciò chi li por­ta avrà la respon­s­abil­ità di
far si che i nos­tri ami­ci non dis­turbino né com­pro­met­tano le attiv­ità o il momen­to dei pasti. Essendo il pos­to all’aperto c’è il ris­chio che il cane si pos­sa allon­tanare.

COSTI
La quo­ta richi­es­ta è di 45 euro (15 euro al giorno) per l’intero gath­er­ing e com­prende:
— pos­to ten­da (3 not­ti)
— pasti (6 pasti)
— attiv­ità
— bevande calde

ALTRE:
I fon­di ver­ran­no des­ti­nati esclu­si­va­mente all’organizzazione del gath­er­ing stes­so. Il luo­go pre­ciso del gath­er­ing ver­rà annun­ci­a­to una set­ti­mana pri­ma dell’evento. Chi­unque fos­se inter­es­sato a pren­dere parte al gath­er­ing è pre­ga­to di con­fer­mare la pro­pria parte­ci­pazione (man­dan­do una mail con nome, cog­nome e data di arri­vo) una set­ti­mana pri­ma al fine di coor­dinare al meglio l’evento stes­so.

Mag­giori infor­mazioni:

Earth First! Italia blog:
http://earthfirstitalia.blogspot.com

Earth First! Roma:
earthfirstroma@autistici.org

Camp Bling back up and awaiting chainsaws — chopping on Sunday?

27.2.2010
Impor­tant Update

Cuckoo Corner tent27.2.2010
Impor­tant Update

6pm — so far, so good at Camp Cuck­oo; food dona­tions com­ing in but still need more peo­ple; lat­est twit­ter updates on PPPS web­site below or SKIPP face­book page.

Var­i­ous sources have now con­firmed that the Coun­cil will be felling the trees on Pri­o­ry Cres­cent dur­ing Sun­day. The affect­ed stretch of Pri­o­ry Cres­cent is going to be closed to traf­fic between mid­night and 8pm Sun­day.

There will be peo­ple climb­ing the trees to pre­vent them being felled — if you feel up to it, please vol­un­teer! We also need as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble on the ground to lend sup­port, wit­ness the Coun­cil’s, pri­vate secu­ri­ty and Police’s actions and so on.

Please come down to lend your sup­port. Peo­ple have been cam­paign­ing against this road widen­ing since 1972 and it’s all com­ing to a head tonight.

Addi­tion­al from SKIPP: Urgent notice — help need­ed NOW! Tree felling begins tonight in Pri­o­ry Cres­cent, any­one who can please come down to site, your help is des­per­ate­ly need­ed, if pos­si­ble please can­cel what ever you are doing, it is now or nev­er, pas­sive or active, you can help save the trees if we act togeth­er NOW… SKIPP Com­mit­tee Con­tact: 07799414887 — mark 07747755205 — pat­sy Please let us know if you can help.

—-

After years of patient occu­pa­tion and appar­ent vic­to­ry, Southend activists have had to reoc­cu­py land to pre­vent the coun­cils new road build­ing scheme. Evic­tions are expect­ed immi­nent­ly and crew are urgent­ly need­ed.

Southend Bor­ough Coun­cil has reneged on the agree­ment made last April with Bling and Park­life which result­ed in an agree­ment with the res­i­dents to vacate the site.

Local Group SKIPP has since been cam­paign­ing to pre­vent the revised plan from becom­ing a real­i­ty, last week SKIPP joined force with Park­life, and Blingers to occu­py a site in Pri­o­ry Cres­cent with a view to pre­vent­ing tree felling which is due in the next few days.

This morn­ing a source with­in the Coun­cil informed us, that tree felling and evic­tion is now immi­nent.

Sup­port is urgent­ly need­ed, the site is sit­u­at­ed in Pri­o­ry Cres­cent on land adja­cent to the Cuck­oo Cor­ner Round­about; by car head into Southend using the A127, fol­low­ing the town cen­tre signs, by train the near­est sta­tion is Prit­tlewell on the Liv­er­pool Street Line.

(for back­ground please refer to: www.campbling.org / www.ppps.org.uk / on face­book search for Sax­on King In Pri­o­ry Park.

Lim­it­ed accom­mo­da­tion is avail­able on site in the form of tents, please bring warm cloth­ing and harness/lock on gear if poss, same old things need­ed; peo­ple, climb­ing gear/lock on gear, her­ras fenc­ing, scaff bar/clips, kit and dona­tions.

On Fri­day a coun­cil meet­ing was halt­ed for 20 min­utes fol­low­ing protests over the new plans.

Fossil Fools Day 2010

Cli­mate change is no laugh­ing mat­ter – but that doesn’t mean we can’t con­front the Fos­sil Fuel Empire with sub­ver­sive humour.

WHAT: Direct actions, prac­ti­cal jokes and throw­ing a span­ner in the works to stop the fos­sil fools.
WHERE: Your street, town or city.
WHEN: April 1st, 2010.

FFD graphic - bigCli­mate change is no laugh­ing mat­ter – but that doesn’t mean we can’t con­front the Fos­sil Fuel Empire with sub­ver­sive humour.

WHAT: Direct actions, prac­ti­cal jokes and throw­ing a span­ner in the works to stop the fos­sil fools.
WHERE: Your street, town or city.
WHEN: April 1st, 2010.

Last Decem­ber in Copen­hagen, the politi­cians sold us out to the fos­sil fools, cor­po­rate lob­by­ists and big banks. Now we’re left with “green cap­i­tal­ism,” a deeply unjust car­bon mar­ket and con­tin­ued assaults on our com­mu­ni­ties and ecosys­tems. If we’re going to stop cli­mate chaos, the only real solu­tion is to keep fos­sil fuels in the ground.

The stakes couldn’t be high­er: desta­bil­i­sa­tion of the glob­al cli­mate, local com­mu­ni­ties destroyed by dirty ener­gy extrac­tion and com­bus­tion, dev­as­tat­ing freak storms, droughts, floods, the list goes on …

This April 1st, join Ris­ing Tide in some cre­ative direct action … use the sim­ply sub­ver­sive to the down­right dis­rup­tive: office occu­pa­tions, ban­ner drops, clown­ish parades, road block­ades, spoof web­sites, sub­ver­tis­ing, street the­atre, leaflets, lock-ons or laugh-ins. What­ev­er works for you and your group.

Join us this Fos­sil Fools Day and hatch some hare­brained schemes that will strike a blow to cli­mate crim­i­nals every­where!

WANT MORE? Fos­sil Fools Day also marks the launch of the BP Tar Sands Fort­night of Shame: a two-week cam­paign cul­mi­nat­ing in actions sur­round­ing BP’s AGM on April 15th. The goal? To stop BP from going into the Cana­di­an Tar Sands – the biggest, dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel project on earth. Find out more: Tar Sands in Focus.. And a word to BP: be afraid… be very afraid.

NEED A HAND? If you would like ideas for actions, graph­ics for leaflets or web­sites, advice on deal­ing with the press, etc., send us an email and we’ll do our best to help out: info@risingtide.org.uk

For more infor­ma­tion see: Fos­sil Fools Day.

In the words of that mas­ter of pranks: “That’s All Folks”.