Reclaim the Earth Centre at Doncaster — People needed for planned occupation

The Earth Cen­tre in Don­cast­er has been left to ruin for 5 years. We intend to take it back. This site now owned by the coun­cil was devel­oped to be a sus­tain­able liv­ing edu­ca­tion cen­tre and com­mu­ni­ty farm. It is cur­rent­ly being used as a fir­ing range by weapon enthu­si­asts Cer­berus Air­soft. Its time to bring this valu­able resource back to the peo­ple before it is sold off for devel­op­ment.

The Earth Cen­tre was devel­oped on derelict land left over from for­mer coal pits, it was intend­ed to be the muse­um for the mil­le­ni­um. Ini­tial plans were for a grad­ual devel­op­ment of the site, incor­po­rat­ing com­mu­ni­ty-led projects and with much con­struc­tion work being under­tak­en by Mowlem, who used the site to train appren­tices. The first stage of that project opened in 1994, includ­ing a sus­tain­able aqua­cul­ture cen­tre and a com­mu­ni­ty farm.

In 1995 the Mil­len­ni­um Com­mis­sion made an award to Earth Cen­tre, which became one of its Land­mark Mil­len­ni­um projects. The site was com­plete­ly redesigned and vir­tu­al­ly all exist­ing land­scap­ing and projects were destroyed, which lost the good­will of the local com­mu­ni­ty who felt exclud­ed from the project. From 1996 work pro­gressed on the reme­di­a­tion of the remain­ing pol­lut­ed land and the design and con­struc­tion of the many build­ings and exhi­bi­tions.

In Sep­tem­ber 2004 the attrac­tion closed to the pub­lic, and only pre-booked school par­ties were allowed. By the end of Octo­ber, the Earth Cen­tre, mon­u­ment to Sus­tain­abil­i­ty, was to the mon­ey men un-sus­tain­able and was put in the hands of admin­is­tra­tors. It is now in the hands of the Coun­cil who sur­prise sur­prise have made no effort to return it to its orig­i­nal intent. Instead the coun­cil choos­es to allow access to Cer­berus Air­soft a com­pa­ny spe­cial­is­ing in pro­vid­ing war games and shoot­ing out­ings to a select mem­ber­ship group. Gen­er­al pub­lic will be thrown off by the police!!

We think that this is an amaz­ing site and the orig­i­nal con­cept behind the Earth Cen­tre is a fan­tas­ti­cal­ly intel­li­gent way of edu­cat­ing com­mu­ni­ties about sus­tain­able liv­ing. It is now the time to return the Earth Cen­tre to the peo­ple.

We need sup­port in many forms to make this hap­pen. To begin with we need peo­ple to come and help occu­py the site, we will need tools and vol­un­teers. This is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for any­one that has been want­i­ng to live in a com­mu­ni­ty, in an eco vil­lage set­ting and a real chance to put South York­shire on the map for envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion and lifestyle.

We’re plan­ning a swoop on the site and then aim to trans­form it so that every­one can use it and ben­e­fit from its resources.

Please help con­tact — thereismore2lfefolks@yahoo.co.uk

This is a very urgent mat­ter!
The fol­low­ing sto­ry was pub­lished in local paper ‘Peter­bor­ough Today’ 15 Feb­ru­ary 2007

DONCASTER Coun­cil is poised to sell off the ill-fat­ed Earth Cen­tre to devel­op­ers after admit­ting run­ning costs mean it would be “extreme­ly unlike­ly” it could be used by com­mu­ni­ty groups.
The prob­a­ble fate of the 200 remain­ing acres of the for­mer £38 mil­lion green vis­i­tor attrac­tion was revealed in the coun­cil’s Cor­po­rate Asset Man­age­ment Plan, pre­sent­ed to coun­cil­lors last week.
The Earth Cen­tre has been moth­balled with 24-hour secu­ri­ty patrols since it was wound up in 2004.
The Asset Man­age­ment Plan pre­sent­ed to a meet­ing of the Econ­o­my and Enter­prise Scruti­ny Pan­el describes the Earth Cen­tre as “extreme­ly unlike­ly to find sus­tain­able use from com­mu­ni­ty or oth­er not for prof­it groups because of the very high cost of run­ning and main­tain­ing both the build­ings and the grounds.” The report goes on to say that a “dis­pos­al solu­tion” would be the “only viable option” for the site.
Ripon-based Pear­son Devel­op­ments Lim­it­ed have sub­mit­ted a plan­ning appli­ca­tion to build 300 hous­es, flats and offices on 17.5 acres of the 30 acres the com­pa­ny bought from the Mil­len­ni­um Com­mis­sion. This land includes the for­mer car park area and the lodge facil­i­ties.
Don­cast­er Coun­cil owns the remain­der of the 200-plus acre site, includ­ing green­belt land and the show­piece con­fer­ence cen­tre and gal­leries.
Their report adds: “Adja­cent land owned by the Mil­len­ni­um Com­mis­sion was sold in spring 2006 to a devel­op­er and dis­cus­sions are in hand regard­ing a pos­si­ble sale of the coun­cil’s land­hold­ing poten­tial­ly to the same devel­op­er.”
For­mer Earth Cen­tre mem­ber Bernard Pear­son said: “All the mon­ey spent there was spent by the Mil­len­ni­um Com­mis­sion from lot­tery mon­ey — I think the peo­ple who have paid into this should be tak­en into con­sid­er­a­tion. I don’t think the Coun­cil has tried very hard to get rid of it.”
Mr Pear­son, who claims the main­te­nance bill for the site is in the region of £30,000 per month, added of the like­ly sell-off: “I think it is sad but it was what one would expect after two and a half years. I would look for­ward to see­ing what pro­pos­als are put for­ward for the site. A lot of pub­lic mon­ey was invest­ed in the site and I would hope the pub­lic will get some­thing out of the arrange­ments.”
Opened in March 1999 as one of the Gov­ern­men­t’s flag­ship mil­len­ni­um projects, the Earth Cen­tre was orig­i­nal­ly billed as an ‘envi­ron­men­tal theme park’.
But the pro­ject­ed vis­i­tor num­bers failed to appear. A relaunch in 2001 saw the cen­tre rebrand­ed to appeal to busi­ness and edu­ca­tion users, but its for­tunes did not revive enough for the attrac­tion to break even. It went into liq­ui­da­tion in 2004 and has been moth­balled ever since.
Nobody at Don­cast­er Coun­cil was avail­able for com­ment this week.

We will not allow this to hap­pen action must be tak­en!

The Earth Cen­tre is key in edu­cat­ing the world about the effects of cli­mate change and sus­tain­able liv­ing solu­tions

Check out what it’s got to offer!

• 80% of build­ing mate­ri­als were either reclaimed or recy­cled
• Europe’s largest flat-foot pho­to­volta­ic installation.1,300 m² canopy con­tain­ing 250 pho­to­volta­ic pan­els – gen­er­at­ing 80,000 KW of elec­tric­i­ty per year and would run the sys­tems and the gal­leries.
• Con­fer­ence cen­tre con­struct­ed large­ly from reclaimed mate­ri­als includ­ing tele­graph poles, crushed con­crete, glass and radi­a­tors.
• A shop and café area
• 6500 m² black box gallery space con­di­tioned through an under­ground ther­mal store called the Labyrinth
• “Liv­ing Machine” sewage treat­ment plant. A local water treat­ment sys­tem pro­cess­ing all waste water com­ing from Earth Cen­tre toi­lets, basins and kitchens, oper­at­ing entire­ly through bio­log­i­cal reac­tions, using both bac­te­ria and nutri­ent-demand­ing trop­i­cal plants in the warmth of a green­house.
• Ful­ly inte­grat­ed net­work of water man­age­ment that incor­po­rates rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing and the treat­ment, stor­age and recy­cling of water for use in irri­ga­tion and water fea­tures and as a wildlife habi­tat.
• 100,000 new trees includ­ing 15 acres of wil­low as well as some ancient wood­lands, two rivers and a vari­ety of eco­log­i­cal grass­lands and wet­lands
• Demon­stra­tions of organ­ic gar­den­ing meth­ods, fruit orchards, wil­low sculp­tures, for­est and bog gar­dens, and oth­er flower and sculp­tur­al gar­dens

All this and a pirate ship!

……Atten­tion……
We need sup­port for the takeover of the Earth Cen­tre, we intend to trans­form it into a camp for sus­tain­able liv­ing and com­mu­ni­ty activism con­tact us now! A swoop date will be announced soon.