On May 5th a large empty site on the south bank of the Thames was occupied by hundreds of protestors and transformed into a village.
The site, next to Wandsworth Bridge was taken over in a well organised swoop by a number of coaches and vans, finding the gates already cut open, and taking the local cops completely by surprise. After the cops had been talked to and a quick site meeting, the rebuilding was quickly organised with various tents and domes, toilets and permaculture areas set up. Since then regular site meetings, events, and the removal of 4 or 5 anti-social dickheads have kept things running and developing smoothly.
The site is owned by Guiness, who want to sell it for a new massive supermarket, which would further increase the heavy traffic in the area and of course be designed for cars not local people. The occupation has been used to fight these plans, to promote alternatives and encourage local people to put forward their own needs and ideas for the site. Guiness offered another site out in the countryside but it was refused because the whole point of the occupation was about urban land and communities, not just about people who want to live in tents being able to do their own thing.
The action has received wide publicity and has been something of a media event. At the start the media claimed the action as their own, with Channel 4 pushing people off coaches cos they were more important, wandering around people's blocks of flats uninvited to get a good view and generally acting like they owned the world. Maybe the next act of reclaiming will have to be from them. The Observer glossy had a thing on how good the action was because these people had "an agenda and a spokesman" - one George Monbiot, of course. In fact there's been various people delegated to talk to and about different things, and at the start of the occupation George was meant to be in charge of communicating with the locals (unfortunate considering that there were Wandsworth people involved, but it wasn't certain that that site would be taken till it happened) but couldn't resist the alure of the cameras. Its bad enough that anyone should be seen as a spokesman, or spokeswoman, but worse that its someone whose agenda is obviously far more liberal and (pro)establishment than most of the people actually doing the work. Monbiot is out to reform land and rationalise its use, in partnership with Guiness and all the other profiteers, using those who want to take and use land and the rest of the resources stolen from us.
The current situation is that the site is still waiting for the bailiffs but a few bits should be left alone because they were left out of the possession order. The first time Guinness went to court they claimed a large area of land including bits they obviously didn't have a right to, so the second time they were a bit cautious and missed a few bits of the site off.
There are thousands of empty sites and buildings that can be taken for what we need, to help us come together and work out what we need and how to do it. Of course there's also plenty of occupied sites that also need taking. In fact, wouldn't it be better to leave what empty green sites there are left in our grey cities and rebuild what's already built. We don't have to just sit back and allow our neighbourhoods to be taken over by supermarkets, cars, yuppie developments.........., we don't have to accept them as they are and just fight over the fringes, and we don't have to wait for the media circus or the "spokespersons" before taking action.