contractors back at work at Combe Haven

As predicted contractors were back at work today on the Bexhill-Hastings Link Rd being built smack through the middle of tranquil Combe Haven. Despite the fact that the funding for the road isn't yet in place East Sussex County Council seem determined to fell all the trees along the route. But now activists are better prepared and this morning (Monday 7th) issued forth from their makeshift tree camps and managed to significantly disrupt work.

SchNEWS spoke to one of them “We were up and ready for them at six this morning, before it got light. They were trying to cut trees to the north of the second camp. There are three big oaks there that they clearly wanted to fell but we pushed through the lines of security and got people into the trees”

Contractors had brought a JCB onto site, which acted as a target for digger-diving all day. According to SchNEWS' correspondent off the ground “We obviously stopped a lot of what they were planning to do. They were mostly just brush-cutting all day. We were with them until it got dark. I'm not entirely sure what they brought a digger along for but they didn't really get to use it”

There were around twenty police to bolster the forty-odd security guards and two arrests were made. By the time of writing they hadn't been released. Earlier in the week police had pressed for one woman to be bailed away from site entirely. In her case magistrates refused as the cops hadn't attached any conditions to her bail when she was first nicked but any future arrestees are likely to face the same draconian conditions – a tactic familiar from the nineties (Anyone remember the Newbury Sausage? - thought not )

Right now the campaign against the bypass is gathering pace – there are now a good number of tree-houses and platforms up and not a few folk on site. But more are always needed.

To find out more http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/