This is a statement by those who opened up the Nottingham Freespace at the old Tory party social club in Lenton this week. We opened up the space in order to provide a radical social centre in Lenton that could connect to and support the strike on November 30th. We entered the building last Tuesday night and have spent the last 6 days cleaning, clearing and making a what was an unusable building ready for workshops, discussions and film showings.
At 4 o’clock this afternoon, the front door of the space was kicked in and a number of us were physically assaulted. This was done with very little warning, it took less then five minutes from the owner appearing at the window, to the door being broken through and all of us being violently removed.
Those of us who were inside at the time are all fine now, we’ve been well fed and are now sheltered in other accommodation, which is more than can be said for many people who are evicted from their homes every day by the state, the bailiffs and the capitalists of this society.
We didn’t lose our belongings in the eviction, neither did we lose our determination to continue with this week’s activities, or our desire to reclaim other unused and abandoned buildings in the future. Instead, we’ll be moving all our workshops, discussions, films, and meals to the Sumac Centre at 245 Gladstone Street in Forest Fields, Nottingham, NG7 6HX. The Sumac Centre is a volunteer run, a non-hierarchically organised space which is owned co-operatively, and supports all endeavours which challenge the domination and oppression of the state and capital.
We hope you will come along.
Tomorrow we’ll be starting at 4pm with a workshop from the SmashEdo crew, followed by a dission on prisoner solidarity. And we’ll end the evening with food and show the film Prison World.
