School is still still there
21 Jun
With various bollix being written in the Argus.
And there is a Glasto-alternative weekend being planned. Details on the facebook.
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School loses court case in Lewes
21 May
The court case on Tuesday: The judge granted possession of the Saint Anne’s School site to East Sussex County Council after a long case fought well by Jeanette with Ian Eiloart as witness. However, in his summing up he did say “I suggest that East Sussex County Council makes plans to put the premises to use and not leave them derelict for years on end. No wonder people grumble.”
Cue the Saint Anne’s Diggers!
As we have a few days until the campers have to leave (next Wednesday at 4pm) we’re going to be making the most of the wonderful space at Saint Anne’s. We’re holding a big community day this Sunday, starting at noon, events to include:
- 1pm – 3pm: Community cafe with free tea
- 3pm: Planting and tree ribbon ceremony
- 3.30pm: Community meeting to discuss future plans
Come along and bring your friends, particularly those who haven’t yet visited and seen the camp and gardens.
With regard to the future beyond the eviction day there are short and long term projects already well underway.
The short term plan is to take East Sussex County Council up on the offer made in their press release to allow the community temporary use of the land. Penny is hoping to meet with the council and the mayor early next week to start negotiations, or at least a consultation to see what Lewes people want to use the land for temporarily.
In the longer term there are a couple of exciting projects in the offing. Two councillors are going for spot listing of the school building and are digging up some fascinating history. The next cabinet meeting of the Local District Council will try to approve of the land becoming part of the Conservation Area. Another neighbour is investigating a draft ‘development brief’ to pre-empt any planning application for building by the council.
The best news of all is that our new mayor went on a planning briefing meeting and discovered that the National Park will call in any application to demolish the buildings – this means it will need their permission for any demolition to go ahead. So that’s put a spanner in their works then!
The new mayor is John Stockdale, old-stock Lewesian who is also chair of the Development Trust which, after a brilliant consultation process, has put in a bid for development of a large site near the river for social housing (with support from the Guiness Land Trust), permaculture, and public amenities. According to Ian Eiloart who came to our meeting after the ‘mayor making’ last night, all talk at the reception was of Saint Anne’s – there is LOTS of support and it’s great for local politicians to be seen to support this. Let’s hope it continues that way.
We’re sure you’ll agree that there are now some very positive things happening as a result of the camp at Saint Anne’s. Thanks everyone for all your support and hard work. Keep up the good work!
Please forward this email to friends who might be interested in what’s going on here at Saint Anne’s School.
http://brightonclimateaction.org.uk/saint-annes-school/
Calling all squatters, old and new
19 May
Got any positive, funny or random stories from your squatting experiences?
We’re putting together an exhibition and zine with positive squatting stories to contradict and show the other side to squatting, to the one regurgitated again and again by the mainstream media.
Wherever you squatted, be it Brixton or Kurdistan, or whether you squat now or you did in the 70s, any positive stories are welcomed – the more varied in time & place the better. Some of the stories we have so far include from after the second world war when families took refuge by squatting abandoned army barracks, as so many homes had be bombed in the blitz, as well as some stories of how newly arrived Asian families to Britain gave up the council housing they had received to squat together in empty estates to avoid the racial abuse they were suffering.
Your stories don’t have to be this extreme though, anything that is positive, funny or in some way a success of managing to stick it up to the landlords or a successful use of squatting for a protest or campaign, is very much welcomed. The stories don’t have to be your own experiences but can be ones of friends, or ones you’ve heard, just so long as they are true.
Any good pictures you might have that can accompany the stories would be brilliant too. Also, if you have pictures of transformations you’ve made turning a destroyed building into a beautiful home, they would also be really appreciated. Of course you can be completely anonymous from anything you contribute.
Email stories & stuff to 
homemade@lorax.org.uk
Download a poster of this call out from here… www.drivehq.com/folder/p8480302.aspx
Many thanks!
homemade
e-mail: homemade@lorax.org.uk
TAA Sheffield now on
19 May
The 2011 Sheffield Temporary Autonomous Arts event has now started and is on from now till Sunday 22nd May.
Sheffield TAA 2011
Unit 3
Bowdon Street
S1 4JP
Come along and get involved!
Sheffield Temporary Autonomous Arts
Last years event:
http://sheffield.indymedia.org.uk/2010/05/451200.html
http://sheffield.indymedia.org.uk/2010/05/451200.html
This years event programme:
http://www.asksheffield.org/doku/doku.php?id=event_programme_-_taa_sheffield_2011
Wednesday 18th May
Open for artists to come help create the space. Hands on affair!! We will be setting up and helping one another to build up the exhibition. If you have any questions then get in touch – artandsoulkollective@gmail.com
Thursday 19th May
We will be running playskools and workshops for an evening of skill sharing…
Get physical with basic acro balance and hoopdance…
How can we use patterns that occur in nature to maximise effect and minimise work? Learn the basics at our Permaculture theory workshop.
Temporary Autonomous Puppets – – create and perform using an assortment of recycled/salvaged materials.
Open Mic relax and relate to Sheffield’s finest performers
SABZE CAFE feeding you some fine vegetarian delights
Friday 20th May
Following an afternoon of workshops and fun in the kids area fill ya tummies up at our SABZE CAFE and prepare for an evening of……
Spoken Word
Poetry
Cabaret
……………..Make some sense? or dress to impress?………………….
Saturday 21st May
Kids Area
Playskools
SABZE CAFE
…………plus an evening of…………
SKA…PUNK…DIY FASHION SHOW…LIVE MUSIC…
Sunday 22nd May
take down
Throughout The Event
Throughout the event there will be
The Temporary Autonomous Exhibition – Multidisciplinary – video, Textile, graffiti… as ever get involved
Kids Area
Open Mic relax and relate to Sheffield’s finest performers
SABZE CAFE feeding you some fine vegetarian delights
TAA
Homepage: http://www.asksheffield.org/
New Coalition to be Launched in Parliament to SQUASH Anti-Squatting Legislation
19 May
House of Commons, May 18th 2011, Committee Room 6, 7pm
Journalists are invited to attend the meeting in the House of Commons, Committee Room 6. There will be an opportunity for one-to-one interviews between 7pm and 7.15pm with the speakers: John McDonnell MP, Katharine Sack-Jones head of Policy at Crisis and Paul Palmer and others.
Housing charities, MPs, squatters, property consultants, activists, lawyers and artists will gather in parliament this Wednesday to launch diverse campaigns against government plans to criminalise squatting. John McDonnell MP will chair the launch.
The meeting will hear from homeless charity Crisis about how criminalisation will hurt the most vulnerable people in society, already reeling from the cuts and the recession. An associate of the Empty Homes Agency along with the Advisory Service for Squatters will talk of how the law change will only protect property speculators and unscrupulous landlords not home-owners. SQUASH will outline how the legislation may be unworkable in law, unenforceable by the police and unaffordable to the public purse.
A parliamentary briefing[i] by SQUASH on the impacts of criminalisation will be launched at the meeting. SQUASH last met when it successfully opposed criminalisation in the early 90s by the last conservative government[ii]. Now it has reformed to face down the latest attack on the squatting-homeless.
John McDonnell Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington said,
‘When government is launching major cuts in public services, especially investment in housing and provision for the homeless, it is no time to also introduce measures that criminalise people for trying to keep a roof over their heads.’
He added,
‘How does the treasury plan to pay for the additional costs to the police, the courts, prisons, homelessness providers and the housing system with their budgets straining already?’
There are nearly 700, 000[iii] empty investment properties in the UK. The Ministry of Justice has already indicated it would like to extend the existing legal protection of homeowners to these absentee landlords[iv], allowing them to continue to keep the buildings empty.
A spokesperson for SQUASH said:
‘Squatters often help these properties to be bought back in to use by bringing the owners out of the woodwork. Very often the owners turn out to be property speculators who are deliberately keeping the properties empty simply to up their profits.’
Paul Palmer an empty property consultant and associate of the Empty Homes Agency said, ‘Squatters tend to occupy long term empties often owned by absentee property speculators registered in offshore tax havens. So no I don’t think that squatting should be criminalised. To do so would only help to protect one set of people, the greedy and the powerful who can afford to keep property empty.’
END
Please contact: press@squashcampaign.org or 07415 516 105 for photos John McDonnell MP on 07956 292 576
Notes to Editors
[i] The briefing (Criminalising the Vulnerable) will be available on the day fromwww.squashcampaign.org and by email request.
[ii] The original SQUASH documents from the early 1990s are available athttp://www.scribd.com/squashcampaign and also http://www.squashcampaign.org
[iii] From 2009 Empty Homes Figureshttp://www.emptyhomes.com/usefulresources/stats/statistics.html
[iv] Crispin Blunt, Conservative MP for Reigate, and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Prisons and Probation) said in a discussion in Parliament on the 30th March 2011, ‘Section 6 of the 1977 Act states that it is an offence for a person to use violence to enter a property where someone inside is opposed to their entry. The offence was designed to stop unscrupulous landlords from using violence to evict legitimate tenants, but its existence has led some squatters to display so-called section 6 notices on the door of properties notifying the property owner that it would be an offence for him to break back in…One option that we have been considering, therefore, is whether section 6 could be amended to give non-residential property owners the same rights as displaced residential occupiers to break back into their property. We think that that would effectively render section 6 notices meaningless.’
Sourced at http://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2011-03-30b.97.0#g102.7
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12 May
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