Its two weeks today since we, a ragged band, moved into the gardens surrounding the old, disused Brunel University Runnymede Campus.
In the past it was a thriving university campus where sciences, design and technology, theatre and sport were taught and enjoyed until the site was sold to private property developers in 2007. For over five years it has remained largely vacant and disused (with the occassional film shoot or police dog training taking place in the buildings).
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So it’s been a week already! Thanks to everyone who has helped so far and to the owners who have been kind enough to let us stay and carry on with our work. The Pebble Mill Social Centre is looking a lot better already and the building has been repaired up to a great standard.
Please come by and visit us. We can be found on Pershore Road, just up from Selly Oak Tavern on the other side of the road just before the bus stop.
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As the Occupy movement signals its reappearance, many observers have been wondering where its focus will be. In fact, even before the coordinated wave of evictions of Occupy camps across the US last November, and the later eviction of Occupy London outside St. Paul’s Cathedral, questions had been raised about where the movement should direct its attentions next, and empty property had arisen as a regular focus.
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The following piece has been written by Ashleigh Marsh, one of five currently being prosecuted under SOCPA legislation for her role is taking part at a picnic and sleep-out on the 31st October 2011, in order to visually show the effect that the criminalisation of squatting would have on between 20-50,000 people in England and Wales, ie having to sleep rough. Ashleigh is active in her community, for example working to get a new skateboard park built for local people in Woolwich, one of most deprived areas in London. SQUASH fully support Ashleigh and all the defendants as they face disproportinate charges, from Monday 23rd April, under the draconian and anti-democratic SOCPA law. This is Ashleigh’s story…
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As the move towards the criminalisation of squatting continues in the UK with the House of Lords waving through the legislation, there have been demonstrations in support of squatting and autonomous spaces.
See below for reports from Brighton (today) and Bristol (yesterday).
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What a joke! All of it, the whole process. Last night the House of Lords passed a clause hidden in the legal aid bill to criminalise squatting in residential properties essentially making thousands of homeless people criminals overnight. A whole section of the very poorest and most vulnerable in society have been made criminals and again the debate took place extremely late in the day.
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Bryn Phillips, who is a British political prisoner, writes the following:
“Next week I’ll be sentenced in Wood Green Crown Court for my limited involvement in last summers riot in Hackney. I threw a Muller light yoghurt at a Police officer in full body armour and pushed over an empty milk trolley.”
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One of London’s largest and most active social centres was evicted Friday morning by around 100 police from the Territorial Support Group. According to reports, occupants were rudely awakened by an unruly mob of riot police breaking the inner door to their sleeping area. As no legal process had been initiated, an old warrant for the building was used as a pretext for the eviction. Occupants were in shock with the latest move by the authorities which allegedly defies nearly all the basic rights for every person to justice, as well as contravening Section 6 of the Criminal Law Act 1977.
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“Process to remedy Katesgrove ‘eyesore’ begins” read the Get Reading headline on 23 February 2012. The following article explained that “plans for a new community garden in Katesgrove could blossom” following a recent council decision to purchase a piece of derelict land. This news means a lot to the members of Reading L&S as it marks the ongoing victories of a land occupation they first began six years ago.
In late 2006, a group of friends squatting in a closed down women’s centre on a busy junction in the Katesgrove neighbourhood of Reading, hatched a plan. The three council owned buildings next door had been derelict for years and the gardens behind them had become a junkies paradise. The ‘secured’ gardens had long become unsecured and needles were strewn everywhere where any child could find them.
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The occupation of Langborough Barn on EDF’s Hinkley Point Development site came to an end today, as over 20 Bailiffs and 10 police officers began the eviction at 6am this morning. It took around three hours for them to remove the Barnstormers.
On Wednesday night the proposed new law to criminalise squatting in residential properties (clause 130 of the LASPO Bill) was debated in the House of Lords. This was, in fact, the first time the clause has been properly debated since it was proposed. Or rather, the first time since the 1st November when the government slipped the clause into a bill which was in its last stage in the House of Commons.
Early Friday morning, police and bailiffs turned up to evict a row of squatted houses in Dalston lane, but luckily the anti eviction squad was out, in numbers, this time with over 60 people blocking the road and lining the rooftop.
