A
blow struck for Climate Camp? (TawNews article)
Reflections
on Climate Camp, 2008 (TawNews article)
Keep
it in the ground! (TawNews article)
Cops
Capture Campers! (TawNews article)
On
the march... again! (TawNews article)
Disarm
DSEi 2007 (TawNews article)
Reflections
on the 2007 Climate Camp (TawNews article)
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Reflections on Climate Camp, 2008
16th August 2008
2006 and the very first Climate Camp was located near the power station at Drax in Yorkshire. 2007 saw it at Heathrow, the campers uniting with local protest groups to oppose the plans for airport expansion. Such phenomenal interest did that Camp awaken, with the eyes of the world on it for a while, that some folk were concerned that another Camp, for the third year running, could prove to be an anticlimax.
Their concern has been shown to have been misplaced.
This year Kingsnorth in Kent was selected as the "target", following an announcement by e.on (the energy giant) of its intention to construct a coal-fired power station there.
Stop & Search
I'd spent the previous couple of days re-assembling my camping kit
(have I really not used it for a year?), ensuring it was
all in good repair, and attending to a seemingly endless string of
last-minute chores.
Then set off for the Camp, arriving there about half-eleven on the
Sunday morning (3rd August).
Calls I'd received from friends who'd arrived there on the Saturday
had forewarned me to expect a rigorous "stop & search". In their words,
it was "brutal".
The cops appeared to have commandeered a car park that they'd converted
into a sort of "stop & search compound" adjoining the lane some hundreds
of yards from the main entrance to the Camp. The procedure was to
get searched at the compound, receive your pink ticket, which then
had to be produced to the bevy of cops lurking outside the main gate.
No pink ticket... get searched there.
However, my own experience of this procedure wasn't nearly as traumatic as I'd been anticipating. In fact, the cop who checked over my stuff was actually - dare I say it? - quite pleasant, and apologetic throughout so that, for me, the whole thing was little more than a mild inconvenience. (This of course is to completely disregard the question of why it should have been considered necessary to search everyone at that stage of the Camp's life, but that's another matter entirely.)
But, according to feedback we subsequently started receiving, that
wasn't the experience of others later the same day, or indeed throughout
the rest of the week. From those reports it certainly seemed that
the cops were way over the top in their "stop & search" methods, heavy-handedness
presumably being part of their standing orders for the duration of
the Camp.
Folk were kept queuing and waiting (far longer, in my opinion, than
the "reasonable time" stipulated in the legislation under which the
cops claimed to be acting... in some cases up to four hours! As far
as I can determine the relevant wording is as follows: "The time
for which a person or vehicle may be detained for the purposes of
such a search is such time as is reasonably required to permit a search
to be carried out either at the place where the person or vehicle
was first detained or nearby."); some were forcibly pushed to
the ground or had their hands held behind their backs; others were
forbidden from photographing (documenting) the proceedings... and
so on.
In fact, at one point a rather savvy camper challenged the procedure
on legal grounds and was consequently allowed through unhindered...
taking a party of others along with him, equally unhindered.
But the cops soon decided they weren't interested in listening to
legal arguments (nothing unusual there then) and reverted to their
intimidatory tactics.
(As they decided to change the statutory powers under which these
"stop & searches" were supposedly being conducted... halfway through
the week! According to the pink slip that I received the power they
were using for the first part of the week was Section 1 of the Police
and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE), whereas I was told that later
in the week they were invoking Section 60 of the Criminal Justice
and Public Order Act 1994.)
Heavy-handed, intimidatory, possibly illegal, certainly repressive, and most definitely unreasonable, not to say nonsensical... the latter no more clearly demonstrated than in the restrictions the cops were applying to what they'd allow on-site (after their brutish search routine of course).
Vehicles for example. Many vehicles were simply not allowed on-site, even just to unload. Consequently lots of folk had to ferry their kit to the site using such things as kids' pushchairs, wheelie bins, and the like. And frequently in pouring rain! Supplies for the Camp's kitchens (equipment... even food!) had to be similarly ferried in.
Thus, of necessity, many vehicles were parked on the roadside along
the access road to the village of Hoo. Which, unsurprisingly, led
to some irritation on the part of local residents. And prompted the
cops to threaten treating the vehicles as "abandoned" and/or remove
them... unless they were promptly re-parked elsewhere... though not
on the campsite of course... which is where their owners were living.
How perverse is that?
But the perversity didn't stop there...
Read the full article here
The full Climate Camp 2008 photoset can be found here
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Keep it in the ground!
28th May 2008
An opportunity to visit the beautiful Derbyshire countryside is not one to be missed, especially when part of that countryside is about to be ravaged in the increasingly desperate quest to seek fuel sources to sustain our consumerist-driven lifestyle.
So when I received an invitation to take part in a walkabout of a site about to be transformed into yet another ugly open-cast coal mine by UK Coal, well, how could I refuse?
Which is how I came to find myself at the Visitors Centre of the Shipley Country Park (adjoining UK Coal's Lodge House site), announced as the meeting-point for the walkabout and "Picnic in the Park".
As this is very much a local issue (albeit tying in with open-cast
mine projects elsewhere, which I'll mention later), and with the unseasonably
changeable weather (nothing to do with climate change of course!)
turning quite overcast and threatening rain at any moment, there was
some concern that very few people, if indeed any, would actually turn
up.
But, in drifts and drabs, they did. From all parts of the country,
most (like myself) having travelled many miles. Amazing! (And an indication
perhaps of how widespread is the concern over the continued use of
fossil fuels.)
The police, clearly fearing a serious breach of public order and safety
in this area far removed from any significantly large population,
had decided to monitor the event, so there was also present some sort
of intelligence-gathering unit videoing all the arrivals.
In fairness to the police though, they maintained quite a low profile
(I only ever managed to count four cops at any one time) and, apart
from one minor incident, they were quite well-behaved.
Eventually, in a party of about 50 or so, we all set off... on what
proved to be a rather long trek.
First, given that few of us seemed to know the precise route to our
intended destination, we had to negotiate our way out of the Country
Park. But it proved to be a fairly straightforward route ("follow
this path to the end, turn right, and keep going till you reach
the fence") and we finally reached the perimeter of the site, which
was fenced in by a very simple post and wire affair, interrupted by
a large gap clearly intended to allow visitors easy access.
Of which, in the absence of any "Keep Off" or "Private Property" signs,
we availed ourselves.
The site covers some 122 hectares, and appears to comprise fields,
hedgerows, and some empty/abandoned/derelict dwellings (at least one
in a significant, and sad, state of disrepair).
Apparently UK Coal announced their intention to develop this open-cast
mine some five years ago, and was fairly rapidly met with opposition
from the local population.
A number of different campaigning groups gradually coalesced and sought
to oppose the project through all the conventional "democratic" channels,
but were ultimately defeated by a decision on the part of the Secretary
of State in 2007 giving the go-ahead for the project (yet another
example of local concerns being over-ridden by central government
maybe?).
Objections to the site embraced a number of different issues, one of which was the site's anticipated "lifespan". Apparently UK Coal had said the site would remain as an open-cast mine for approximately 4.5/5 years, whereas local residents, fearing that the yield would prove to be far larger than official figures (seemingly about one million tonnes), were deeply worried that the site's lifespan could well extend to 27+ years.
Moreover if, as some locals fear, the yield is indeed larger than was originally announced, UK Coal could easily extend the size of the existing site to almost three times its present size, as apparently they also own adjoining land.
One of the obvious questions that needed to be asked (as indeed I did) was about the nature of the local infrastructure to support such a project. How, for example, was the yield to be transported? Were the existing roads adequate to provide access for heavy lorries, plant, etc? And were UK Coal offering/intending to foot the bill for the construction of new and dedicated access routes (road, rail, etc)?
Apparently not.
Read the full article here
There's a BBC report of the event here, and here's another account.
This is UK Coal's own comment on the project.
Of course, Lodge House isn't the only site in the UK where open-cast coal mines are proposed. For information on other sites and indeed updates regarding this one check out www.leaveitintheground.org.uk.
There are also some even more worrying ramifications to the development of open-cast mines worldwide. See Phulbari Resistance.
The full Lodge House photoset can be found here!
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