Bexhill Revisited
Last Saturday (13th), hundreds of people joined a walk and Rally against Roadbuilding in East Sussex. There were guided walks along the route of the Bexhill Hastings Link Road, which started construction in January. After learning about the wildlife that is being destroyed and seeing the grim reality of roadbuilding, the walks all converged on the village of Crowhurst.
SchNEWS talked to one participant: "It was awful walking around where they've started construction, with a lunar landscape where there used to be trees and lots of machinery there doing more damage, but then we arrived in Crowhurst and it was like a village fete with a vegan buffet, displays and even a coconut shy. It was inspiring to see so many people there working together to stop new roads wrecking the countryside."
There were speeches from a range of people working against road building in different ways, including CPRE, Combe Haven Defenders, Campaign for Better Transport, Hastings Alliance and Crowhurst residents. All compered by Sir Ian Bowler MP. Everyone is still detirmined to fight this road all the way and to link up with other groups fighting other roads, which are all part of the Tory roadbuilding programme, dragged back from the dead for these 'times of austerity'. Which brings us nicely to the news that the budget for the Bexhill road has just been increased by £13 million to a total of £113 million. This is roughly the amount being cut from the local social care budget...
New or widened roads are planned all over the country including the Peak District, Stonehenge area, the Norfolk Broads and the South Downs. There's probably one near you. Find out more on the Roads to Nowhere website.
The Earth First Gathering will be just next to the route of this road, near Bexhill on the 7th-11th August. Come to learn about resisting road building and other types of environmental destruction, meet people, go on bat walks, and have some fun.
Update: So the landowner came, saw the numbers of protecters, the lock-ons, the bike-powered smoothie makers and the music, and returned home after refusing to talk to either the protesters or the press. But it isn't over – bailiffs could return at any time. Email GH 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@transitionheathrow.com
Convoys of trucks carrying equipment descended on West Newton yesterday, as Rathlin Energy commence their exploratory fracking drilling.
Anti fracking campaigners have got their hands on a Sussex Police report that details an 'emerging' nationwide strategy on protests against the controversial drilling technique. The report has been exposed in a report about the policing of the protests at Balcombe, West Sussex, last summer.
They've stolen our postal service, and are currently giving away the health service, education and prisons to their mates, what's next for this Government? Perhaps the most audacious theft yet - potentially all of our public land.
Artivists take on BPs sponsorship of the British Museum's Viking exhibition.
We started writing about three interesting but unrelated things happening in June. Here is an amalgamated version, which is worth a read.
As politicians get ready to debate the HS2 rail project for the second time, campaigners fight for secret documents to be released - and the environmentally devastating project to be shelved.
Re-occupation of the Hambach Forest, near Cologne in Germany, where activists occupy and fight the expansion of opencast mining.
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