squatting news — London, Leeds & Manchester — updated

Sec­ond court reprieve for RAMpart2
3.03.2008
The squat opened as a back­up venue to the ram­pART social cen­tre in east lon­don today enjoyed it’s sec­ond court­room reprieve. Twice now it has been served with an appli­ca­tion for a Inter­im Pos­ses­sion Order. The first time the claimants failed to turn up at the hear­ing and today they admit­ted that they had failed to cor­rect­ly serve notice on the defen­dants so it was thrown out of court. The own­ers will be apply for the third time and the papers are expect­ed to be served some­time Tues­day with a court date prob­a­bly some­time next week (although it could be ear­li­er if there is an avail­able time slot at the court).

Sec­ond court reprieve for RAMpart2
3.03.2008
The squat opened as a back­up venue to the ram­pART social cen­tre in east lon­don today enjoyed it’s sec­ond court­room reprieve. Twice now it has been served with an appli­ca­tion for a Inter­im Pos­ses­sion Order. The first time the claimants failed to turn up at the hear­ing and today they admit­ted that they had failed to cor­rect­ly serve notice on the defen­dants so it was thrown out of court. The own­ers will be apply for the third time and the papers are expect­ed to be served some­time Tues­day with a court date prob­a­bly some­time next week (although it could be ear­li­er if there is an avail­able time slot at the court).

Whether it will be ram­pART or RAMpart2 which gets evict­ed first remains a neck and neck race. A new build­ing is being sought. If you have sug­ges­tions please con­tact the col­lec­tive via ram­part at mutu­alaid dot org.

Check out the pho­to essay about lon­don’s secret social cen­tre…

http://indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/london/2008/02/392529.html

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ram­pART and RAMpart2 evic­tions
25.2.2008

All very gloomy news from the var­i­ous parts of the ram­pART. This morn­ing there was a hear­ing to decide whether there would be an appeal against the grant­i­ng of the pos­ses­sion order relat­ing to Ram­part Street. The judge decid­ed there would be no appeal.

The pos­ses­sion order orig­i­nal­ly grant­ed for the 3rd of Jan is now active and the own­ers may now get a war­rant to enforce the order and book the bailiffs for an evic­tion. This could be with­in two or three weeks although this is just a guess and we’ll know more in a day or two.

Mean­while, a new set of papers was served (kind of) on RAMpart2 and the hear­ing date is the 3rd of March (ie. next mon­day). The hear­ing is both for an IPO and ordi­nary pos­ses­sion order (which seems a lit­tle weird) and assum­ing they actu­al­ly both­er to turn up this time we seem to have no defense beyond a few tech­ni­cal­i­ties. If they get the IPO then we’d be evict­ed tues­day 4th March.

A new build­ing is urgent­ly required.

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Part of the inter­na­tion­al week­end of action in sup­port of squats and autonomous spaces around the world (see www.april2008.squat.net for more info).

A Cel­e­bra­tion of Free Spaces
Leeds City Cen­tre, Fri­day 11th — Sat­ur­day 12th April 2008

Across the world, com­mu­ni­ties are under threat as city “regen­er­a­tion schemes” favour a glam­orous , busi­ness-friend­ly envi­ron­ment over and above issues such as com­mu­ni­ty,. social hous­ing and diver­si­ty. Leeds is no excep­tion as PFIs and sim­i­lar pri­va­tised “regen­er­a­tion” pro­grammes threat­en com­mu­ni­ties across the city.

We want to show that com­mu­ni­ties through­out our city are not pre­pared to lie down and accept this!

For this week­end we are plan­ning a squat­ted space in Leeds City Cen­tre, fea­tur­ing:

- cafe
— focus on hous­ing / squat­ting / gen­tri­fi­ca­tion
— free shop
— fam­i­ly friend­ly space: day­time cafe will be alco­hol-free & drug-free space
— oppor­tu­ni­ty to link up with oth­er com­mu­ni­ties threat­ened by the above issues

…but most impor­tant­ly the space will be open for what­ev­er you want it to be: an oppor­tu­ni­ty for films, dis­plays, art, work­shops… to get involved give us an email on leedssquat@googlemail.com or call 07526 261061.

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Man­ches­ter Space Invaders Land­ing April

11th & 12th April have been named as ‘inter­na­tion­al days of action on autonomous
spaces’. There will be things hap­pen­ing in Europe includ­ing squat­ted
build­ings, par­ties, Reclaim the Streets, land occu­pa­tions and more!
We have start­ed an organ­is­ing group to kick start ideas for action in Man­ches­ter. From reclaim­ing the streets to gueril­la gardening..from a ceilidh to a
veg­an cafe…free par­ty to per­ma­cul­ture space…

MANCHESTER SPACE INVADERS LANDING SOON!

Decen­tralised days of action (April 11–12th) meet­ing
Thurs­day 21st Feb­ru­ary 7–9pm

15 peo­ple met from var­i­ous dif­fer­ent net­works to begin plan­ning for the autonomous
days of action in April..

What are the days of action?

11th & 12th April have been named as ‘inter­na­tion­al days of action on autonomous
spaces’. There will be things hap­pen­ing in Europe includ­ing squat­ted
build­ings, par­ties, Reclaim the Streets, land occu­pa­tions and more!

The squat­ting net­work met recent­ly in Leeds, and the next nation­al squat meet­ing
will be in Sep­tem­ber 2008, in Man­ches­ter and the focus will be on skill shar­ing, and
the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a mass squat­ting action.

Ideas for action for 11–12 April. We dis­cussed lots of options for the days of
action… From reclaim­ing the streets to gueril­la gardening..from a ceilidh to a
veg­an cafe… Con­sen­sus was that it would be good to com­bine doing a squat with a
pos­i­tive, inclu­sive, out­door event, reclaim­ing a pub­lic space in the city..

We dis­cussed the capac­i­ty need­ed to make these ideas happen..so if you have time,
equip­ment or skills please get involved! Peo­ple are up for mak­ing squat­ted social
spaces, there have been 2 pre­vi­ous TAA’s (Tem­po­rary Autonomous Art spaces) in
Man­ches­ter that have been in squat­ted build­ings. There have been TAAs all over the
coun­try.

To find out more about poten­tial areas we are look­ing at for the squat, street par­ty
and park, come to the next meet­ing.

A build­ing could be the nucle­us for what we do and some­where to base the week­end.
Every­one agreed that it’s vital to have time and space set aside for
work­shops, meet­ing space and events. It could cre­ate a col­lec­tive that
wants to keep a squat­ted social cen­tre going for a while. There are com­mu­ni­ty
cen­tres being shut down all over the city at the minute.

We need mon­ey and peo­ple with skills to share and squat­ting expe­ri­ence. Please get
in touch if this applies to you! you don;t have to come to lots of meet­ings, but it
would be great if you could join our team to help make these plans a real­i­ty!

We are devel­op­ing a resource for legal infor­ma­tion and to clar­i­fy what is involved
in squat­ting..

We call for net­works and autonomous groups across Man­ches­ter to get involved…
Basement/Critical Mass/Under the Pavement/Indymedia/Open Media Collective/
Man­ches­ter Ani­mal Protection/Temporary Autonomous Artists/Campaigns Collective/No
Borders/Manchester Cli­mate Action/Soundsystems/
LGBT Groups/Queer/Feminist/Permaculture/Food not Bombs/Musicians
and many more besides!

Next meet­ing: Thurs­day 6th March 7pm Meet­ing Rm 3 Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter Stu­dents
Union, Oxford Rd.. please note this is an acces­si­ble venue.

Peo­ple will split into work­ing groups and start to
con­sid­er prac­ti­cal­i­ties.

To join the email list:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/manchesterspaceinvaders
then click on sub­scribe
email manchesterspaceinvaders@yahoo.co.uk