TREES BEING FELLED IN DALKEITH NOW — Peo­ple need­ed now, and peo­ple and food and tat need­ed over the next few days, espe­cial­ly climbers and mid­night site builders
Tree felling start­ed yes­ter­day. Already about 12 big old oak and birch trees have been chain­sawed down. The pix­ies and the lit­tle folk appeared about 5am today. By the time the chain­saw wage slaves turned up for work this morn­ing there were walk­ways, ban­ners, and lots of hip­pies in the trees, So the chain­saw wage slaves are enjoy­ing a paid day of hang­ing around wait­ing for bail­ifs.

There are peo­ple in trees in lang­side, along salters road, and in a small but beau­ti­ful site that had already been set up at cas­tle steads next to the riv­er esk. PEOPLE NEEDED NOW, and peo­ple and food and tat need­ed over the next few days, espe­cial­ly climbers and mid­night site builders.

The plan­ning per­mis­sion for this road dates from way back in 1992. Since then, the Scot­tish Exec­u­tive has rec­om­mend­ed that a mul­ti­modal trasport sudy is done for this entire trans­port cor­ri­dor before any road build­ing goes ahead.The coun­cil’s pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion about the road is still sneak­ing qui­et­ly around the area, and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to respond is open until 9th Decem­ber, but that has­n’t stopped the sense­less destruc­tion of the area.

A guy in a suit, claim­img to be a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Exec­u­tive, but refus­ing to give his name, angri­ly told every­one that they were tress­pass­ing and would get into trou­ble. the hip­pies respond­ed with mon­key nois­es, and the uniden­ti­fied suit stum­bled off with his top lip quiv­er­ing.

Come and bring us choco­late, come and join the fun!
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This after­noon, the 48-hour notice from the Sher­iffs Court was deliv­ered to the protest site at Dalkei­th Coun­try Park.

Ear­li­er this morn­ing, tree felling was start­ed. Five trees were lost includ­ing a beau­ti­ful old oak before pro­test­ers suc­cess­ful­ly blocked any fur­ther cut­ting and halt­ed work.

In response, the liai­son offi­cer deliv­ered the 48-hour notice stat­ing all occu­piers need­ed to leave dur­ing that peri­od or face pros­e­cu­tion.

More Peo­ple are urgent­ly need­ed to pro­tect this wood­land!

Back­ground

On Mon­day 31st Octo­ber, pro­test­ers set-up a tree-sit to stop the destruc­tion that will be caused by the Dalkei­th North­ern Bypass of the cur­rent A68. The tree-sit is in Dalkei­th Coun­try Park, a his­toric 850 acre park that serves as a valu­able wildlife habi­tat and is vis­it­ed by 50,000 peo­ple annu­al­ly. The pro­posed bypass would cut the wildlife habi­tat in two, and while the 1999 Strate­gic Road Review not­ed it would offer jour­ney sav­ings, it also not­ed the bypass would cause “gen­er­al­ly neg­a­tive rat­ings in the oth­er envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors, includ­ing glob­al air qual­i­ty, water, ecol­o­gy, visu­al impacts, her­itage, and land­scape char­ac­ter.” Although con­struc­tion is not sup­posed to begin offi­cial­ly until the sum­mer of 2006, because of the ear­ly spring nest­ing sea­son of birds and bats, tree-felling is to begin imme­di­ate­ly. In response to this emer­gency, anti-roads pro­test­ers have set-up a tree-sit and walk­ways in the pines that are in the path of the exten­sion. Pro­test­ers will also be present at Mid­loth­i­an Coun­cil’s upcom­ing pub­lic review to help present the case against the bypass­es through Dalkei­th Park and through Bil­ston Glen.

Pro­test­ers will remain in the trees until the bypass is defeat­ed.

Con­tact

Dalkei­th Protest Site Phone: 077839043697

For more infor­ma­tion on the cam­paign to Save Dalkei­th Coun­try Park, vis­it the

web­site of the legal cam­paign: www.save-dalkeith-park.org.uk/

There is a peti­tion on the Scot­tish Exec­u­tive’s site run­ning until the end of Novem­ber: epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/list_petitions.asp

Or you can email Mid­loth­i­an Coun­cil direct­ly at: local.planreview (at) midlothian.gov.uk or phone at Tel: 0131 270 7500

Direc­tions to the Protest Site

The site is in a stand of pines on the north side of the Riv­er Esk after the two branch­es have joined and near the cut for the over­head elec­tric lines.

Enter Dalkei­th Coun­try Park at the north end- entrance off of the A6094 at Smeaton Lodge (between Dalkei­th and White­craig). Go past Home Farm towards the Riv­er Esk, after cross­ing the bridge the protest site can be accessed by the first farm track on the left (note the site is not acces­si­ble for vehi­cles).

Alter­na­tive­ly, enter Dalkei­th Coun­try Park from the main entrance off of the High Street in Dalkei­th. Stay on the road lead­ing to the right past the adven­ture play­ground, shop and cafe­te­ria; after pass­ing the graz­ing fields and the pow­er line cut the road will split. Take the left fork towards the Riv­er Esk. After cross­ing the bridge, the protest site can be accessed by the first farm track on the left.

From Edin­burgh, Loth­i­an Bus­es 3 and 3a go to Dalkei­th.

*please help spread this message and get in touch if you can assist in translating it to any other languages*
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Hey! y’all out there in the EF! net­work:
[for those already inhab­it­ing a low-land, near-equa­to­r­i­al biore­gion, please don’t mind the short PR rant below]

Is win­ter in your biore­gion a time of rest; a lull of activ­i­ty in accep­tance of nature’s cycles? Maybe Feb­ru­ary is the peak of a long and frigid sea­son that has you curi­ous about what your bare-skin looks like or what it was like to have full sen­sa­tion in your fin­gers and toes.

Down here in the swamps and beach­es of the trop­ic­s/­sub-trop­ics of south Flori­da things are a lit­tle dif­fer­ent: The ocean is per­fect swim­ming tem­per­a­ture; the com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens are in their full glo­ry; with the mos­qui­toes at bay, it’s per­fect weath­er for hikes through the pine flat­woods, cypress swamps and dwin­dling scrub lands; what’s left of local cit­rus trees offer a fresh-squeezed dai­ly immune-sys­tem boost; and our sea­son of kick­ing ass against devel­op­ers and ven­ture cap­i­tal­ists who are try­ing to turn this amaz­ing biore­gion into a sprawl­ing con­crete play­ground for the glob­al elite is just about to reach cli­max.

We’re invit­ing you out of hiber­na­tion and back out onto the front­lines! It’s that time of the year again, when the EF! net­work gath­ers up to hash out cru­cial move­ment deci­sions & direc­tion, par­ty their brains into mush and then invig­o­rate the host­ing biore­gion with some badass action(s). So, start mak­ing your trav­el plans & affin­i­ty group schemes, it’s time for anoth­er.

————————————————————————
Earth First! Orga­niz­ers’ Conference/Winter Ren­dezvous
Feb. 15th — 20th 2006 Palm Beach Coun­ty, South Flori­da
————————————————————————-

Loca­tion- The swamps of the Ever­glades’ north­west­ern bor­der, along the Hun­gry­land Slough. The OC meet­ings will be the 15th ‑17th held at the Ever­glades Youth Camp inside the J.W. Cor­bett Wildlife Man­age­ment Area, which has full facil­i­ties (includ­ing cab­in options, a swim­ming hole and, uh alli­ga­tors). Fri­day night will be the annu­al ‘Night To Howl!’ gath­er­ing of the War­rior Poets Soci­ety, so bring poems, songs and sto­ries to share. The week­end will con­tin­ue on a prim­i­tive camp­site as the win­ter ren­dezvous and fies­ta. Bring your work­shops, music, and hik­ing gear and plan on stick­ing around, poten­tial­ly, for a fol­low­ing week of actions.

OC Con­tent- The usu­al sub­ject mat­ter will be on the table: reports from the Jour­nal; eval­u­at­ing strat­e­gy, tools & tac­tics; exam­in­ing our visions & aspi­ra­tions; where we’ve been, where we’re going; state repres­sion review; anti-oppres­sion check-in; and biore­gion­al round-ups. We also hope to offer some extra atten­tion this year to the ques­tion of sol­i­dar­i­ty beyond bor­ders (nation­al and cul­tur­al), and per­haps strate­gize a bit on an inter­na­tion­al lev­el. We will also be seek­ing trans­la­tion assis­tence for this effort.

Inter­na­tion­al Invite- South Flori­da is an acces­si­ble loca­tion for inter­na­tion­al trav­el, and is a social hotspot of cur­rent glob­al com­merce and pol­i­tics. For sev­er­al years, the glob­al­iza­tion move­ment has influ­enced (and been influ­enced by) EF! But rarely has it been pos­si­ble to dia­logue with eco-rad­i­cals in oth­er parts of the world, espe­cial­ly the major­i­ty world move­ments who have been inspir­ing direct action efforts with­in the U.S. empire. For these rea­sons, the invi­ta­tion is being put out to help bring folks from oth­er coun­tries’ rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal move­ments and indige­nous strug­gles here for the OC and Win­ter Ren­dezvous (this means visa assis­tance and some extra fundrais­ing, so if you can be of any help in those areas, please con­tact us ASAP!)

Local Cam­paign- In the wake of a mon­u­men­tal court vic­to­ry against the Army Corps of Engi­neers, the bat­tle against Scripps Flori­da Biotech Research Park is heat­ing up to be one of the largest, broad­est and most suc­cess­ful cam­paigns in this region’s eco-activist his­to­ry. Mas­sive land scan­dals, cor­po­rate biotech night­mare, bio-haz­ardous waste issues, bio-prospect­ing in the major­i­ty world, bru­tal ani­mal research… and an active con­struc­tion site (still in oper­a­tion as of this email, despite ille­gal per­mit­ting and more pend­ing law­suits) all with­in a mile of our love­ly camp in the swamp.

The Details- We are request­ing a $25–50 dona­tion to cov­er costs of gath­er­ing, and poten­tial extra trav­el com­pen­sa­tion (for folks from our inter­na­tion­al tribe). If you’re biore­gion knows it will need assis­tance, please get in touch ASAP. Also, we want to encour­age peo­ple to bust out that old stack of jour­nals and review the past years’ OC write-ups before com­ing down. If you don’t have access to some EF!er’s archives in your area, get in touch and we’ll send the last copies of the past sev­er­al years of post-OC arti­cles so all are a bit clos­er to the same page. Bring basic camp­ing gear, includ­ing your own kitchen uten­sils. Please noti­fy the plan­ning com­mit­tee if you will be need­ing child­care or have any oth­er spe­cial needs.

EF!OC 2006 comite: p.o. box 961, lake worth, fl 33460 (561) 547‑6686

p.s. it’s still ear­ly. this info is sub­ject to change.

SUBSCRIBE TO EARTH FIRST!,
THE RADICAL ENVIRONMENTAL JOURNAL

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Earth First! Jour­nal, POB 3023, Tuc­son, AZ 85702, USA
(520) 620‑6900; tortuga@earthfirstjournal.org
www.earthfirstjournal.org
Sub­scrip­tions are $25/year (in the US), $22 for low income subs
US $40 for 1st class or to Cana­da and Mex­i­co
US $40 for inter­na­tion­al sur­face mail, $50 inter­na­tion­al air mail

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Here is a list of the dates and venues for the Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty speak­ing tour

Manchester:

Thurs­day Novem­ber 3rd 7.30pm the Base­ment, 24 Lever
Street, host­ed by the Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion.

Lancaster:

Fri­day Novem­ber 4th to Sun­day Novem­ber 6th par­tic­i­pants in Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp will be deliv­er­ing a paper to the con­fer­ence ‘Mak­ing Glob­al Civ­il Soci­ety: Grass­roots Prac­tise and Aca­d­e­m­ic The­o­ry of Glob­al­i­sa­tion from Below’ which is hap­pen­ing at Lan­cast­er Uni­ver­si­ty.

London:

Tues­day Novem­ber 8th 7.30 pm Auton­o­my Club, Free­dom Book­shop, Angel Alley, 84b Whitechapel High street, Lon­don E1 (near­est tube Aldgate East), host­ed by the Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion.

Oxford:

Novem­ber 9th 7:30pm, Oxford Action Resource Cen­tre.

Nottingham:

Novem­ber 10th 7pm, Inter­na­tion­al Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, 61b Mans­field Rd.

London:

Sat­ur­day 12th Novem­ber, 7pm to 3am, Ram­pArts social cen­ter (www.ramparts.co.nr) There will also be ben­e­fit gig for the cam­paign with food & drink + music.

Newcastle:

Mon­day 14th Novem­ber, 7.30pm, Tyne­side Irish Cen­tre, host­ed by Why Don’t You?

London:

Thurs­day Nov 17th 7.30pm, Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre (www.londonarc.org) host­ed by Lon­don Ris­ing Tide.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty South Pacif­ic was set up in 2002 to pro­vide sup­port to trib­al, eco­log­i­cal and oth­er rad­i­cal strug­gles in the South Pacif­ic. Our 3rd newlset­ter was pub­lished in Octo­ber 05 and includes news of gueril­la strug­gle, anti-log­ging activ­i­ties, pris­on­er sup­port work, eco-rev­o­lu­tion and a min­ing exec­u­tive eat­en by a croc­o­dile!

For your free copy send an S.A.E to: Re-pressed, 145–149 Cardi­gan road, Leeds, LS6 1LJ, Eng­land.
It will soon also be avail­able in PDF for­mat on our web­page — www.eco-action.org/ssp

We are always pleased to hear from any­one who can help with dis­tri­b­u­tion by tak­ing some for stalls, info-shops and the like, or can review it in zines or news­pa­pers. We are also inter­est­ed in feed­back and con­struc­tive crit­i­cism of the newslet­ter and the activ­i­ties it cov­ers. Con­tact leedsssp@riseup.net

At any one time SSP will be involved in sup­port­ing pris­on­ers and rais­ing mon­ey for our var­i­ous direct aid funds. From time to time we also put out calls for sol­i­dar­i­ty actions. Please check out our web­site and sub­scribe to our (very low traf­fic) email list to be kept up to date with these activ­i­ties.

In novem­ber 1995, niger­ian writer and activist, ken saro-wiwa, and 8 of his col­leagues were exe­cut­ed by the mil­i­tary regime for cam­paign­ing against the dev­as­ta­tion of the niger delta by oil mul­ti-nation­al shell. yes­ter­day, demon­stra­tors dropped nine noos­es infront of the shell uk head­quar­ters on the south bank to high­light the anniver­sary and high­light the cur­rent strug­gle on the north west of ire­land, where shell is set to trans­form a remote con­ser­va­tion area into an envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter zone with pub­lic health and safe­ty impli­ca­tions.

short­ly after mid­day, climbers scaled the lamp­posts out­side the shell hq build­ings on the south bank, and dropped the nine noos­es from a line between the posts. oth­er pro­tes­tors arrived with huge ban­ners, a mega­phone and leaflets, along with a tiny but noisy sam­ba band.

the action soon attract­ed the local secu­ri­ty teams, a cou­ple of over­whelmed com­mu­ni­ty sup­port offi­cers, and then var­i­ous police. police used the new ‘seri­ous organ­ised crime act’ leg­is­la­tion which pro­hibits “unau­tho­rised demon­stra­tions’ with­in an exclu­sion zone around par­lia­ment. at first they claimed that the pro­tes­tors could not demon­strate any­where near to the shell build­ing, but after being shown a map of the exclu­sion zone, con­ced­ed that the action could con­tin­ue on york road at the front of the build­ing.

they hand­ed out many leaflets and edu­cat­ed passers-by of the real un-‘greenwashed’ real­i­ty of shell. one of the par­tic­i­pants was ter­ry clancey who is vis­it­ing from the irish ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty group. he will be speak­ing at an event at ram­part on sat­ur­day.

after a pause for some late lunch, it was off to the nation­al gallery, where shell is cur­rent­ly spon­sor­ing a rubens exhi­bi­tion. vis­i­tors are charged £7.50 — £9 for entrance, but shell offer free tick­ets to their spe­cial guests, and have held at least two ban­quets in the build­ing, sur­round­ed by the clas­sic art of rubens. as busi­ness men are treat­ed to this sump­tu­ous pri­vate exhi­bi­tion, you can begin to see why shell are so keen to spon­sor this kind of thing — it fits in neat­ly with their green­wash slo­gan of ‘prof­it AND prin­ci­ples’.

for fur­ther info:
on shell gen­er­al­ly www.shellfacts.comwww.corporatewatch.org
on the strug­gle in ire­land www.shelltosea.com
on shell art spon­sor­ship www.artnotoil.org.uk
on protest restric­tions www.freedomtoprotest.org.uk

to con­tact the uk sol­i­dar­i­ty cam­paignstops_hell@yahoo.com

video of the lon­don anti-shell actions on 9th novem­ber
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/media/2005/11/327725.mov

Some folks got togeth­er today in Aberdeen to stand with the Ogo­ni peo­ple in remem­ber­ing Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight Ogo­ni col­leagues who were exe­cut­ed by the Niger­ian state for cam­paign­ing against the dev­as­ta­tion of the Niger Delta by oil com­pa­nies, espe­cial­ly $hell and Chevron. $hell was in court today, Aberdeen Sher­iff Court in per­haps the most impor­tant fatal acci­dent inquiry for the indus­try since the Piper Alpha dis­as­ter. They have admit­ted that their fail­ures led to the deaths of two work­ers on one of its plat­forms.

First peo­ple stood out­side the court

From there out to the $hell offices in tul­los where a qui­et vig­il with lanterns and poet­ry was held .
Office work­ers leav­ing were offered a leaflet and most friend­ly accept­ed

Last­ly on to the $hell offices on Ander­son dri­ve­where a long ban­ner was placed in time for some rush hour traf­fic, draw­ing the link between the Ogo­ni peo­ple and the Irish peo­ple

Futher Infor­ma­tion,
court­case: news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=2175272005
Ken Saro-Wiwa :
www.november10th.com/
Irish farm­ers:
www.corribsos.com/

A protest site has been set up to defend anoth­er beau­ti­ful wood­land from unnesse­cary destruc­tion. We have been build­ing defences but the site is in its very ear­ly days. The road is extreme­ly high pri­or­i­ty and the trees are con­tract­ed to be felled in the next two weeks. We urgent­ly need help and sup­port. A site phone num­ber and more infor­ma­tion will be put up soon, but if you want to come to site then your best going to Bil­ston Glen Anti Bypass Protest Site (they are only four miles apart) as there is a van going between the two sites on a dai­ly basis.

For direc­tions see: Http://www.bilstonglen-abs.org.uk

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Dalkei­th Park is sit­u­at­ed between the town of Dalkei­th and the A1. The Park is part of the Edin­burgh Green Belt.

It is a well-used ameni­ty, eas­i­ly accessed by foot, cycle, car or bus. Use of the park has increased steadi­ly over the years and it now attracts more than 50,000 vis­i­tors annu­al­ly. An area of out­stand­ing nat­ur­al beau­ty, it is a pop­u­lar retreat for wildlife enthu­si­asts, cyclists, fish­er­men, horse-rid­ers, ori­en­teer­ing groups and walk­ers.

This ‘lit­tle piece of heav­en’ was obtained by our Scot­tish Exec­u­tive under a ‘com­pul­so­ry pur­chase’ so that they can build a bypass right through it!

The Park is a haven for wildlife includ­ing brown hare, roe deer, fox­es, heron, buz­zards, goshawks, otters, bad­gers and king­fish­ers to name but a few.
In fact the Riv­er Esk Val­ley is a list­ed wildlife site.

The pro­posed bypass will cost in the region of £30m to £40m.

For more infor­ma­tion chek out the local cam­paigns web­site:
Http://www.save-dalkeith-park.org.uk

This week­end, at a venue in Forest­fields peo­ple from accross the coun­try came togeth­er to dis­cuss the issues and ways of opos­ing the expan­sion of heavy indus­try in Ice­land.

The expan­sion of the alu­mini­um indus­try in Ice­land and the pro­posed flood­ing of thou­sands of square miles of nat­ur­al wilder­ness, which is to pro­vide resevoirs for the Dams that are being built, affects us all.

The build­ing of the dams is destroy­ing the largest unspoilt nat­ur­al wilder­ness area in West­ern Europe, Polu­tion from the Alcoa and Alcan alu­mini­um smelters will ruin marine and land habi­tats and they will polute the atmos­phere. Silt from the resevoir will dry and blow accross the sur­round­ing rur­al areas deves­tat­ing the remain­ing veg­e­ta­tion. Thus desta­bils­ing fur­ther, an already frag­ile envi­ron­men­tal eco sys­tem. These are just a few of the many detremen­tal facts which the Ice­landic gov­er­ment along with its part­ners in heavy indus­try are sup­port­ing.

The gath­er­ing in Not­ting­ham was well attend­ed by peo­ple from around coun­try. It dis­cussed ways in which this envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion can be opposed; looked at this years protest camp, and actions an protests thus far. The gath­er­ing will con­vene again in Jan­u­ary, details of which will be announced near­er the time.

An infor­ma­tion tour is tak­ing to the road and will vis­it Oxford, Cam­bridge, Bris­tol, Lon­don and Cardiff show­ing films and high­light­ing the issues and how they fit into the big­ger envi­ron­men­tal pic­ture.

A sucess­ful protest camp at the site of the Karanuhj­ka Dam this year has attract­ed much sup­port from the ice­landic com­mu­ni­ty and made peo­ple realise that they can protest against gov­er­ment poli­cies. The camp is hoped to be repeat­ed next year in Ice­land with thou­sands of peo­ple attend­ing through­out the sum­mer.

For more infor­ma­tion regard­ing the cam­paign and to make a dona­tion to the cam­paign, vis­it the web­site.
www.savingiceland.org

Road protest site into its fifth week. Come down and help out, check out the web­site.

We are now work­ing hard to con­sol­i­date our posi­tion on site, to make it as defend­able as pos­si­ble, and to make it ready for the com­ing win­ter.

On Mon­day after­noon, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from both Parklife/Camp Bling and nation­al lob­by­ing body Road Block met with the Depart­ment for Trans­port (DfT), to state our case once again, and to get the lat­est devel­op­ments on the sit­u­a­tion regard­ing road F5 and the deci­sion mak­ing process.

Need­less to say we made our posi­tion quite clear: That we intend to make Bling one of the largest and most sig­nif­i­cant road camps in the coun­try. We also intend to make any evic­tion of us from the land as expen­sive and pro­tract­ed as pos­si­ble, to deter any deci­sion in favour of the road.

Accord­ing to the DfT, it would now seem that any deci­sion to fund the road by cen­tral gov­ern­ment is not like­ly till the new year at the very ear­li­est. We are there­fore going to sit it out, and in order to do so we still need your sup­port to get through the ini­tial win­ter peri­od.

Things we need (cheeky maybe but nec­es­sary), and on a reg­u­lar basis are:

Finan­cial dona­tions
Build­ing materials/tools
Sub­stan­tial tar­pau­lins (canvass/plastic)
Paving slabs
Scaf­fold­ing
Vegan/vegetarian food.

Addi­tion­al­ly, we still need you to get peo­ple to:

Check out www.savepriorypark.org
Post com­ments on the ‘Bling Blog’(on web­site)
Write to deci­sion mak­er Karen Buck (details on web­site)
Write to your local MP to request a Min­is­te­r­i­al response
Write to your local paper’s let­ters col­umn
Vis­it the camp (details on web­site)

Address:

Camp Bling
1 King’s Bur­ial
Pri­o­ry Cres­cent
Southend on Sea
Essex
SS2 6JZ

To get info check out: www.savepriorypark.org
Camp Bling line 1 07817 182 394 /line 2 07739 189 165
Voice­mail 01702 340 099
Press line 1 07929 595 761 /line 2 07929 595 766
e‑mail: priory_parklife @ yahoo.co.uk

A PROTEST against the destruc­tion of Tit­nore Woods in Dur­ring­ton, Wor­thing, went ahead this after­noon (Sat­ur­day Octo­ber 29), despite police attempts to crush it. One man was arrest­ed but at the time of writ­ing is not known to have been charged with any offence.

A cam­paign of intim­i­da­tion in the local press was fol­lowed up by mas­sive over-polic­ing, with around 60 pro­test­ers faced by the same num­ber of cops, some of whom had been draft­ed in from as far away as Hast­ings in East Sus­sex, 50 miles away. The event was billed as a vig­il for the death of democ­ra­cy, because of the way over­whelm­ing local oppo­si­tion to the 875-home estate and asso­ci­at­ed road widen­ing has been bull­dozed out of the way by the local coun­cil, and a “cof­fin” bear­ing the corpse of democ­ra­cy was parad­ed.

But the title has proved high­ly appro­pri­ate in anoth­er way, as Sus­sex Police proved once again how far we have pro­gressed towards a police state, with protest vir­tu­al­ly regard­ed as a crim­i­nal act. Local peo­ple arriv­ing ear­ly for the vig­il at the Tit­nore Lane round­about on the A259 were told by police that they would not be allowed to stay there after 2pm — the adver­tised start of the vig­il. Cops tried to hand pieces of paper to every­one arriv­ing, out­lin­ing restric­tions on where peo­ple could protest.

It seems the police were plan­ning to force the vig­il away from the high­ly vis­i­ble round­about and into an “autho­rised” protest zone where they could not be seen. But when the num­bers swelled and they realised any heavy-hand­ed­ness would be embar­rass­ing­ly vis­i­ble to queues of motorists, they backed down and did not enforce this pol­i­cy. With video-cam­era wield­ing “evi­dence gath­er­ers” cre­at­ing a mood of intim­i­da­tion, the police began their famil­iar pet­ty games of provo­ca­tion. Peo­ple were giv­en con­stant­ly shift­ing instruc­tion as to where they were “per­mit­ted” to stand. Some­times they were not allowed to cross the road and some­times they had to.

A group of peo­ple who decid­ed to use the foot­bridge over the A259 were told this was not per­mit­ted because it rep­re­sent­ed a traf­fic haz­ard. Ear­li­er on, these same peo­ple had been direct­ed to use the bridge by police. Even­tu­al­ly, a man who declined to cross over a road and rejoin the main demon­stra­tion was arrest­ed and bun­dled into a police van, to the anger of fel­low pro­test­ers.

He is cur­rent­ly still being held at Wor­thing Police Sta­tion in Dur­ring­ton, but had not been charged with any­thing yet, accord­ing to lat­est infor­ma­tion. After the arrest, police moved in rein­force­ments from around the cor­ner some­where and adopt­ed a more aggres­sive stance, forc­ing peo­ple away from the side of the road and form­ing a line in front of them, osten­si­bly to “stop an acci­dent” but clear­ly to stop the plac­ards being seen by motorists, many of whom hoot­ed their sup­port. When the vig­il end­ed at 4pm, evi­dence gath­er­ers fol­lowed a group of pro­test­ers to Gor­ing sta­tion and con­tin­ued film­ing them until they board­ed the train towards Wor­thing.

Police appear to have formed some kind of exclu­sion zone around Tit­nore Woods them­selves, per­haps fear­ing a land occu­pa­tion and protest camp, and there were reports this evening that some Tit­nore Lane res­i­dents who had been on the protest were stopped from return­ing to their own home after­wards.

Update on arrest

The arrest­ed man was released on bail ear­li­er this evening, hav­ing been charged with “fail­ure to obey con­di­tions imposed on a pub­lic assem­bly”, with a court date of Wednes­day Novem­ber Novem­ber 9 at Wor­thing Mag­is­trates Court. Mean­while, there are sug­ges­tions that the “Sec­tion 14” order imposed on the event by the police may have been ille­gal…