London: Grow Heathrow, “You can’t evict an idea”

Nearly five years later the group has cleared 30 tonnes of rubbish and runs a popular community space called Grow Heathrow with a bicycle workshop, food-growing club, renewable energy courses, and an art space.
On Friday the 15th of August, after a three year court battle, bailiffs arrived for the first time to evict the group and were met with nearly 200 people supporting Grow Heathrow to continue the project.
The bailiffs will be returning soon and the members of community garden are preparing with various resistance tactics. The group are trying to negotiate with the owner to buy the land with the support of John McDonnell MP and the Sipson Resident’s Association. [Read More]

London: Grow Heathrow eviction Resisted Successfully

Eviction Resisted successfully on Friday 16th August.

From the tower I couldn’t see what went on at the main gate, but the whole site was secured by a good number of folk (50 – 100 odd?) and a local 15 year old d-locked herself to the front of the barricaded gate.

Lots of music and fun was had by all!!
[Read More]

London: Grow Heathrow, We’re Still Here! But more to come…

Support_Grow_Heathrow_eviction_resistanceWE DID IT, TOGETHER WE RESISTED AN EVICTION TODAY!
THANK YOU
everyone who helped resist the eviction at Grow Heathrow, the chefs, live band, bike powered smoothie makers, seed sowers, climbers, people locked on, Jonathan Goldberg for photos, organisers and more…
BUT….
Unfortunately this is not the end…
The Bailiffs may return any day without warning… to try and evict Grow Heathrow once more… we will need to come together again for this…Email us your phone number if you want to be part of the phone tree or join the mailing list on the website: http://www.transitionheathrow.com… info [at] transitionheathrow [dot] com Come down and visit, stay and help the site run… [Read More]

London: Grow Heathrow eviction notice 8am, Friday 15 Aug

On Friday 15th August at 8am, bailiffs will make their first attempt to evict Grow Heathrow (previously here and here). Four and a half years after the abandoned greenhouses in the middle of Heathrow Airport’s proposed third runway were occupied by local residents together with activists, Heathrow villagers are organising again to resist airport expansion that’s ruled out by climate science.
[Read More]

London: More anti-homeless spikes go up in Southwark

Yesterday, more anti-homeless spikes were installed outside a Southwark building.

Yesterday, a local resident sent us two photos of more spikes being installed outside what looks like another, possibly private residential building on the corner of Druid Street and Abbey Street in Bermondsey.
[Read More]

London: Autonomous Sports Clubs

Forced evictions and brutal street murders in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, committed by a militarised police, have typified the ‘preparations’ for this year’s World Cup in Brazil, showing once again that sport cannot be detached from politics. The institution of international sport is an important vehicle for the violent neoliberal project.
[Read More]

London Queer Social Centre 2014

Friends, followers, Brags: we are beyond delighted to announce the location of our next Queer Social Centre will be

432 COLDHARBOUR LANE, BRIXTON, SW9!

Brag is back where queer & radical squatting in London began – where the Brixton Fairies opened their squatted Gay Community Centre in 1974, where Olive Morris fought the police and cracked squats for black families, where squatted women’s centres offered space for feminist activism and refuge to women and kids fleeing domestic violence, where the squatted Sabaar Bookshop hosted Black Panthers meetings and the anarchist 121 Centre put on Queeruption, where whole streets and blocks of flats were reclaimed and turned into homes and community spaces.

[Previous Brags were announced here and here]
[Read More]

UK: DWP And Homelessness Charities Link Up To Bully Homeless Benefit Claimants

The homelessness industry is today welcoming an upcoming change in the law which could see homeless people forced to live in unsuitable or unsafe accommodation or face losing eligibility for benefits.

Homeless Link and St Mungo’s Broadway have published a gushing press release cheering amendments to the rules for Jobseeker’s Allowance set to come into force next month. The changes mean that newly homeless people may only be considered meeting the criteria for benefits if they take “such steps as are reasonable for him (sic) to take to find living accommodation.”
[Read More]

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Forest of Dean (UK): Eviction Attempt – Our side of the story

We are a group of ecological farmers who have spent the last two years creating a community farm for the benefit of local people. We live peacefully in Yorkley where we have contributed positively to the Forest of Dean in many different ways.
[Read More]

Squatting in England: Heritage & Prospects

Over the past few years, there has been a push to criminalize squatting across Western Europe. But in a time of increasing economic instability, can governments succeed in suppressing squatting? What is at stake here?

This article reviews the background and contemporary context of squatting in England, beginning after the Second World War and comparing the current movement to its counterparts on mainland Europe. It touches on many stories: migrants squatting to build a life safe from fascist attacks, gay activists finding spaces in which to build up a scene, vibrant and insurgent squatted areas, single-issue campaigns occupying as a direct action tactic, and anti-capitalist groups setting up social centers. We hope this text will help those in present-day struggles to root themselves in the heritage of previous movements. [Read More]

UK: Squatting as a solution to the housing crisis

The occupation of the former police station on Lower Clapton Road by Hackney residents who describe themselves as “not political” but homeless provides the owners – namely Free School Trust the Olive School – with the opportunity to prove their claimed commitment to “community service and charitable giving”, as reported on their website.

The Olive School must act humanely and negotiate with the occupiers to find a mutually beneficial deal that allows the occupiers to remain in the building until refurbishment commences.
[Read More]

Great Cornard (UK): Man defies police

From local mainstream press in Suffolk, UK:
Homeless man defies police to go on squatting in village pub

A squatter living in a closed Great Cornard pub has said he has no intention of leaving despite efforts by police to move him on.

David Vernon has been making himself at home at the Highbury Barn in Canhams Road for more than three weeks.
[Read More]