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Images of EDL thugs in Leeds today taken from Indymedia

Back into the vicinity of a computer from the anti-EDL march in Leeds city centre, here’s a dogs eye view of the turns of the day so far.

Arriving at about 9:30am into Leeds train station, the streets were notably clear already of anyone but worried looking police and disinterested shoppers. A low line of fencing surrounded city square, where statues were covered up with green tarpaulin and the distictly premature christmas tree that had been there a few days previously had disappeared. Electronic signs and loudspeaker systems were being erected around the square, which was to be the location of the EDL “against muslim extremism” (but of course not racist at all should the shaven headed hordes be believed). Ironically, this location had apparantly been chosen by the EDL as there is a giant statue of a knight on a horse there, who they believed to be St George, but is in fact a statue of “The Black Prince”.

A TV van outside the church opposite was having it’s doors tested by a couple of policemen seemingly looking for something to do, whilst a policewoman nearby was saying that she hoped noone would show up.

Leaving the area for a bit to get some flyers for the Northern Indymedia reporting number photocopied, disturbingly few outside of the area around the station were even aware of what was planned that day. A worker at a coffee shop nearby had heard however and asked if we were planning to attend. They wished the anti EDL demonstrators luck and a free coffee on the house should they return thirsty.

After an hour or so of handing out flyers to various friends and groups who were making their way in ever greater numbers to the city centre, we headed towards the library where various antifascist groups and anti racism campaigners were planning to meet. Again, there was a cordon around the “designated protest zone” and an even heavier police presence at this location. By the time we arrived at about 11.15am, there were very few people, those that were there mainly comprising of UAF stewards in their high visibilty jackets and several people trying to sell a certain newspaper to anyone who showed more than a passing interest in the activity going on.

The police at the entrance to the cordon were struggling to install a metal detector, of the type used at airports and football matches. “I think the batteries about to die Sarge” One policeman was heard shouting across the road. Later in the day, with the protest in full swing, there was still a couple of policemen struggling to make it work, by which point hundreds of people had already passed.

We took some pictures of the line of around 6 police vans and the “battle of the metal detector”, and left the cordon to go back down Park Row to see if there was a similar presence at that end of the street. 10 yards down the street however, we were stopped by a police medic who asked what my name was.

“I’m not so sure I want to tell you that” was my first response to this question, unwilling to comply with any attempts to draw me into casual conversation.

“Look, if you’re not going to tell me your name, I’m going to arrest you and we can get your name at the station” came the not so friendly reply.

“Surely I’m not required to tell you that” I responded, to which I was told that a blanket section 60 had been placed over the whole of Leeds, authorised by Chief Supt Milson of West Yorkshire Police. This meant, I was told, that they had the power to detain and search me if I was acting in any way suspiciously. When I asked what my suspicious behaviour was, I was told that it was due to me taking photographs of the police.

My efforts to explain that I was covering a major event to contribute to Indymedia, and that it was perfectly natural to be taking pictures when confronted with hundreds of police, a line of police vans and an airport style stop and search area, seemingly carried very little weight. A tense few moments led to a FIT cameraman with a video camera worthy of Universal studios was beckoned to within 3 feet of me to capture the remaining exchange.

As my bag was emptied of the spare socks, bourbons and computer equipment it contained in front of me, a stop and search slip was written out giving the reason “Sec 60 stop. Seen taking photos of police equipment” Of particular note to myself was when I was asked

“Are you a Gypsy or Traveller?”

At first assuming this was some stunning deductive guesswork from the medic, I was surprised to discover that this question actually has it’s own y/n box on the form (with an absence of any other similar question on the form, other than the standard “Self Defined Ethnicity Classification” box to which a code was also entered. When I objected to this, and pointed out that it’s a fairly offensive thing to include, I was told to bring it up with the home office.

Finally satisfied with the camerawork of his colleague, the medic turned back into my “Best friend” and helpfully informed me that I wasn’t a terrorist after all, with the words:

“If you’d have just given us your name and address when we asked, we wouldn’t have had to search you would we as you wouldn’t have seemed suspicious”, (which is a strange logic when I was stopped for ‘acting suspiciously’ even before they had chance), before admitting that section 60 is controversial. “It’s not very popular, but it works”.

Moving down to city square, people were getting ready for the arrival of the fash. The air was noticibly more tense as the police began to grow in numbers and cameras were unloaded from an unmarked BBC van with a satellite dish on the roof. We asked what they were hoping to film, to which they replied they probably wouldn’t be broadcasting any coverage unless fighting broke out, and that they were there “just in case”. Groups of Antifa activists, clearly and respectably unwilling to be penned in to the “official protest areas” milled about the nearby streets.

Heading back to the library, the numbers were beginning to swell and speakers tried to address the crowd from the steps. A police electronic billboard that had been erected circled in the background with the words “face coverings must not be worn”.

A sudden surge of police to block off the Headrow marked the arrival of a few hundred marchers with anarchist flags, seemingly from the Woodhose area of Leeds, being kettled into formation by several rows of police. Scuffles broke out as people tried to break through the lines towards the EDL pen by the station. At least one person was seperated from the crowd and arrested, and police struggled as a flare was lit and the crowd surged forwards, before eventually being pushed back into the barriers at the library.

Once things had calmed down a little, we headed back down Park Row to await the arrival of the EDL from the station. Wheras the Library end of the street was heavily policed, there were noticably fewer at the City Square end at this time. Eventually, a rush of police horses to the station and the distant chanting of “In-ger-land” and other football terrace chants marked the arrival of the fascists, to be held near the bus stops until the police cleared the streets.

Antifascists lined the barriers outside the church, waved flags and shouted “Nazis!”, only to be seperated off and silenced by the police who allowed the racist chanting on the other side of the road to continue. A mass of shaven headed people in football shirts stood amongst the antifascists on the side of the road, jeering and shouting support for the EDL, but soon backed off when confonted. Eventually, the EDL, numbering about 150, were penned in city square where they waved st Georges flags and chanted anti muslim slogans, bouncing up and down on the spot as they did so.

And so began the next few hours of the police battling to keep the two groups apart. Whilst the EDL seemed quite happy to drink lager and shout slurred, racist chants, many attempts were made by the anarchist antifascists to break out of the Library pen in numbers, only to be pushed back by both the police and the UAF stewards who were shouting over the megaphone “We have to stay and defend the library”. Who they were intending to defend it from is anybody’s guess as the fascists were quite happily swaying down the road. Occasionally, a small group of fascists would attempt to make their way to the library, only to be chased down by Antifa activists and spirited away back to their pen by the police to chants of “Police protect the fascists”.

Eventually, at about 3pm, the police surged into city square in large numbers and riot gear and began to push bystanders back to create an area of clear roads around city square. Whilst many hoped that they were finally going to deal with the racist chanting, 2 coaches arrived and the EDL dutifully got on board, leaving the square strewn with beer cans. Antifascists tried to get through, but instead dispersed in small groups to track down groups of skinheads who had slipped away to nearby pubs, most notably Yates’s wine bar which had an EDL flag hung up in the window.

Back at the library, groups of frustrated demonstrators attempted to leave the pen chanting “We want to march!”, only to be pushed back by a combination of the police and the UAF stewards, still seemingly trying to rally people to “defend the library”, despite the fact that the EDL were now sat on 2 coaches and without the stomach to even try. This seemed to be causing tension, and the police were stopping any groups from leaving the pen. A group which had got through, reformed and attempted to break through on Infirmary street were pushed back into the pen by police with batons.

With crowds dispersing, batteries dead and the main throng of fascists gone, we boarded a train and headed back to Bradford, the main impression of the day left in me being that the police seemed to have gone to extraordinary lengths to silence the antifascists, whilst giving the EDL centre stage. Looking at the “Gypsy/Traveller – y/n” section of my yellow slip, I tried to imagine why.

Jim Dog
Northern Indymedia

The election of two British National Party (BNP) candidates in the June elections to the European Parliament was the first national election success for fascists in British history. We have already seen some of the consequences of the BNP’s election. There has been increased BNP media coverage including the BBC announcing it would invite Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP to appear on Question Time.

http://thecommune.wordpress.com

31 10 09  The English Defence League are holding a rally. The EDL is a nationalist, islamophobic organisation formed earlier this year and are widely viewed as racist. Most of their propaganda plays on misconceptions of UK foreign and domestic policy fuelled by the main-stream media. They claim to be standing up for the British armed forces, who are correctly criticised for waging an imperialist war of aggression against the populations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Many people view this as a weak excuse for a group of assorted xenophobes to promote their cause.

A counter-demonstration has been organised by Unite Against Fascism (UAF), (The Red Faceist of  The SWP) In the past in Britain (and still today in most other European countries) opposing fascism was considered a duty by almost all anarchists and socialists. Today, many (particularly within the British anarchist movement) have abdicated responsibility for taking on the fascists, and either ignore the issue completely, or at best seed responsibility to specialist antifascist groups such as Antifa. Opposing fascism is something ALL of us have to play a part in, particularly with the growing influence of fascist groups like the British National Party (BNP.)

People in Bradford and beyond want publicly owned, historic and lovely building saving and restoring – it’s an old cinema, we’re the city of film, the Alhambra fits in with it perfectly, it’s one of the few nice buildings that wasn’t already knocked down and replaced with 60s monstrosities that only lasted about 30 years, etc etc.

Council want to sell the site to a developer. Council collect opinions and objections over and over again, the same result comes back every time – we want it saving. Council finally have decision meeting where it’s left up to seven councillors. Councillors decide to knock it down because the developer they already promised the ’site’ to might sue them if they don’t give them what they’ve already promised them in advance of any decision actually being made, and what they’ve already promised them is the Odeon flattened, and the site to build a big glass brick with a hotel and offices in it.

We’ve had enough of the backhanders, the people we’ve elected to represent us doing the exact opposite of what we’re screaming for them to do, we’ve had enough of being patronised and accused of being ‘nostalgic’, of having characterless buildings and rubble beginning to typify Bradford.

We’ve been through all the red tape they told us to in order to save this symbol of our past and present, and they’ve ignored us, so now we’re going to show them how pissed off we really are

Two people have scaled the old Odeon building in Bradford 28/10/09  in a bid to halt the demolition of the historic building and engage the community ahead of a protest 31/10/09.

On The 28/10/09 at 5am two local people climbed inside the Odeon in a campaign to save the building. A banner reading ‘Save the Odeon’ was unfurled at 7.30am to engage the local community with the issue of undemocratic descision making within Bradford Council.

More info on the protest planned for Saturday can be found here. Link to video of banner being unfurled

Poster subvertisement campaign

Way in

Lighting rig in the main auditorium

The projector for Cinema 1

Up on the roof..

Approaching construction works

Old cinema speaker

The Bingo room

Tight security at the Odeon

Old generator

Luxurious seating

Popcorn still available

Strange signage in the bar

Electricity supply left in place

Abandoned office

Bingo!

Film Reels in a cupboard

Inside the projector room

Ready to be fired back up

More projector dials

Sunrise on the roof

Morning over Bradford

Raise your banners

Ventilation System

The projector room workbench

Cinematograf

In the auditorium

Thank You – Enjoyed your company

Hungry?

First Choice

In the staffroom

Hi Tech operation

The only badly damaged part of the building, near the staffroom

Plants invade the coridoors

Arched celings in the coridoor

Graffiti left by previous vistor

Boiler room in the basement

The Generator

Welcome to the Odeon

Save the Odeon!

More subvertising for saturdays event

Activist on the roof

Making the point

Rush hour traffic gets the message

The Odeon building is an intrinsic part of Bradford’s heritage yet the council have decided to approve its demolition. This is despite the desolation seen in Bradford city centre, a key example is the Westfield development which has been left as a gaping hole in the heart of the city. The Bradford populous have little faith in the gentrification of the cityscape and came out in force to ‘Hug the Odeon’ in 2007.

The banner drop today comes only days before a protest in Centenary Square this Saturday at 12noon. Because the council have made their decision on the fate of the Odeon, it seems that only the Secretary of State can halt the demolition. The meeting which made the decision was considered by many to be a farce, the councillors told that they may face legal action from the regional development agency, Yorkshire Forward. It was based on this information that the panel voted to demolish the building, yet Yorkshire Forward then siad that they had no intention of sueing Bradford Council over their decision.

One of the protestors said “They are destroying a really beautiful building when we have no money in the city and it’s cheaper to keep the Odeon rather than build something ugly and pointless.”

The other said “I’m doing this in solidarity who wants their politicians and local councillors to represent them and not business.”

The campaigners hope that it may be complex to remove the banner as health and safety red tape will mean that checks must be carried out before workers can get into the Odeon and onto the roof to take it down. However a van had arrived at 9.30am which may contain equipment to remove the sign. More info on the protest planned for Saturday can be found here.

Background/History

On 23rd September Bradford Council Planning Committee made the descision to accept the proposal for demoltion of the iconic Odeon building in Bradford. Local people are outraged at the descision made through a simple majority of 4 to 3 councillors.

Bradford Odeon as it stands today

Councillors converge outside the Odeon to discuss the demolition application and look aorund the building

After an extremely long meeting at Bradford City Hall the 4 Conservative, 2 Labour and 1 Liberal Democrat councillors decided that the Odeon will be demolished and replaced by a new building. The members who voted for the new planned building as opposed to keeping the Odeon were 3 Conservatives and 1 Labour.

After a tour of the site, one Labour councillor said that looking around the site had “…put the cat amongst the pigeons…” and that they didn’t know which way the descision would go. Just before the vote the councillors gave an expression of interest, alluding to how they were planning to vote, at this point it was clear that the vote would stand at 2 for versus 5 against the demolition. At this point the lawyer chirped up that if they voted the “wrong way” then there could be a appeal which would inccur large costs for the council. He took them away for a half hour private meeting in which he told them the figure they would be “liable” for in any resulting appeal made by the developers, Langtree Artisan. If they voted for the demolition it would be cheaper for the council. The lawyer did everything in his power to scare the council and provided no positive solutions to the objections raised by the councillors and Bradford Odeon Rescue Group, who spoke against the demolition proposal.

After the private meeting the councillors then voted and their opinion had apparently swiftly changed for the worse as the vote stood at 4 for versus 3 against the demolition. There were just under 3,000 individual representations of objection to the demolition of the Odeon, while only one individual representation in support.

Reactions from members of public at the meeting included gasps, shouts of “Shame!” and jeering at councillors. There was also a cry of “we’ll make your life hell” while councillor Hussain of city ward was given an ovation for his condemnation of the Langtree Artisan plans. He said “I still will not vote for this proposal as I believe the building can be refurbished and the proposals are inadequate.” The odeon is in his ward, while the other councillors wards are elsewhere.

One member of the public who was present said that “It was a gutting descision, clearly the councillors have been bought, after their secret meeting, democracy could never prevail.”

One anonymous member of the council said “Well, the likely hood is we’ll have another Westfield” in response concerns from the public over whether the development would be completed. The Westfield development is the bane of the city centre, an abandoned building site once destined to become a new shopping centre, now moth-balled due to financial diffculties faced by the developers.

There are some conditions to the demolition.

1) The demolition may not begin to knock down the Odeon until they have a contract with a construction company signed and can demonstrate that they have the resources required to construct the new building.

2) There must be some amendments to the design of the new building so that English Heritage and national designers association are happy with the materials used.

Q. So what’s this all about then? Posties are just lazy aren’t they? And that’s why Royal Mail want to sort them out?

A. No! A Postman/woman’s job is one of the hardest jobs in the country – fact. No joke! Ten years ago your postie had 2 bags of mail to deliver each day, now your postie struggles to deliver 6-8 bags per day in the same hours. This is no exaggeration – work load has more than trippled in recent years. And believe it or not 60,000 jobs have been cut in the past 5 years at Royal Mail with the remaining staff (many now part-time) absorbing the resulting massive increase in workload.

Q. Oh come on – so why is the company saying you’re all lazy and have all these ‘Spanish Practices’ where you don’t do what you’re told or get loads of overtime money for doing nothing?

A. There are infact no so-called ‘Spanish’ practices (apologies to the Spanish) and there haven’t been any for years. When they did exist they did so with the blessing of management and some like the biggest, ‘job and finish’, were introduced by national management to encourage us to walk faster! The latest agreement with the union (2007 Pay and Modernisation) abolished job and finish as per company wishes. So this issue is simply propaganda to make us look bad and get the public on the companys side. The managers in Royal Mail call the shots full stop and infact they regularly threaten posties with the sack if they say they can’t cope and have too much work to do.

All overtime has to be signed off by managers, as you’d expect, and many offices have an overtime-ban meaning it simply is not paid under any circumstances. This is a modern highly structured UK company here, they have a tight reign on all goings on and far from being lazy, posties regularly work-on for nothing – often against their will, slogging their guts out because managers have them fearing for their job.

Q. You’re joking right?! The Managers aren’t that bad?

A. No! Royal Mail managers rule with a rod-of-iron and have been bullying and threatening staff for years. Multiple cases have been officially reported in every office and some complaints upheld, but the threats continue. In a typical large delivery office of say 100 posties upto 1/4 (usually the part-timers) will be routinely threatened into working past their hours – for nothing. The rest will rush rounds as quick as they can to avoid confrontations with managers or having to beg to be paid for overtime. It’s very common for overtime payments to never appear in wage packets even after repeated reminders.

Q. I just can’t believe this. You’re saying postmen don’t swan about doing whatever they want telling managers where to go?

A. Absolutely not, on my mothers life. The opposite, is infact, the case. Postmen fear for their jobs daily and rush round doing more work than 3 postmen did 10 years ago – and now the managers want even more. That’s what this is all about. We are treated like dirt, threatened daily, work for nothing, we’re given enough mail to kill a donkey and still the company want’s to make more cuts. When postmen have accidents at work due to rushing round or by tripping while looking at the bundle of mail when walking, (instead of stopping to check it which we no longer have time for) we are actually reprimanded and put on a warning process that in 3 steps leads to the sack.

Threatened with the sack for trying to get the job done in unrealistic time spans! A postie works harder than you would believe, otherwise he/she has pay suspended or is sacked or bullied into giving up the job.

Q. OK so if that’s true, why do I get everyones mail except my own?! Posties these days couldn’t care less and throw letters in any old door.

A. Well the answer is simple – with 3 times the workload of your old-fashioned postman the modern postie doesn’t have the time to check the mail properly. Simple as that. Your postie is expected to do 4 to 5hours of delivery work in 3 1/2 hours.

That’s all they are given and as a result corners have to be cut. So not all the letters can be checked, packets are dumped on doorsteps, hedges and walls are jumped over, lawns are run across and vaguely addressed mail that the postman used to be able to deliver by asking around is now regularly destroyed or sold off by the company! And not only is there more mail than ever now but rounds have been made bigger for many many posties in the past 18months – going up from 500 to 7-800 houses for each postie and this increase in round size is being rolled out nationally. It’s a result of the Pegasus computer program which is being unfairly programmed to walk speeds of upto 5miles an hour.

Q. Hold on, your saying there is MORE mail than ever? Royal Mail say it’s dropping 10% every year as a result of the internet and texting?

A. That’s a complete lie. Nationally, mail volume is measured by counting the number of boxes of mail that arrive at a delivery office. The number of boxes is multiplied by the average number of letters per box to get a total figure. Now here’s the clever part – until recently the number of letters in each box was estimated at around 200. That number was arbitarily and without consultation with the workforce or union reduced to 150. So overnight mail volumes droped by 25% – now THAT’S magic.

In response, the union had random counts done over a period of weeks and the average number of letters per box was found to be….256. Other independent counts from individual postmen have found boxes contain from 230-290 letters each. But there’s nothing the union can do to redress the balance, the new figure of 150 still stands and the big lie continues. If you ask any postman about mail volume he/she will say there is significantly now more mail (volume and weight) then ever, compared to 3, 5 or 10 years ago. Ontop of that the ‘Mail Volume’ figure Royal Mail bang on about totally ignores the number of packets comming into the system from home shopping and the internet. These are very very profitable for the company meaning postmen now have 3 to 5 times more packets than ever before!

Q. I can’t believe this. OK but doesn’t there need to be staff cuts? Redundancies? And the union are stopping this modernisation isn’t it?

A. As stated above, there has actually already been a cut of 60,000 staff in the past 5 years at Royal Mail. Yes that’s right, sixty-thousand less staff and in addition to that around 1/4 of the fulltime staff have been made part-time. And this was agreed to by the union! That’s because we recognise the introduction of new machines (which was also fully supported by the union!) reduced the numbers of staff needed. All redundancies were voluntary and cuts were made by not hiring replacement staff. Now, Royal Mail fail to mention this when they talk about ‘the union preventing modernisation’. The union is actively LEADING THE WAY and fully co-operative with realistic moderisation proposals, the implementation of machines and more efficient working that benifits the company and it’s dedicated workers. The problem now is that more and more cuts are being made, but now with no consulation or agreement, and they go way way too far and benifit neither the customers sevice nor us the staff.

Q. OK, so which parts then of Royal Mail’s modernisation plan is the Union objecting to and how would the changes effect me anyway?

A. Hold on there, it is NOT the union that are making the objections here – it’s us, the employees.

The union do what we, the staff, ask them to do and it’s us Royal Mail workers up and down the and (76%) that are united in saying we’ve had enough. Please don’t see this as ‘another union trying to stuff the management’ issue. The CWU desperately want a sucessful Royal Mail just like the workers do. OK…Royal Mail’s idea of modernisation, very simply, is to give someone 3 1/2 hours to do 4 to 5 hours of delivery work. Royal Mail’s idea of modernisation is going to make us give you a terrible service because we don’t have time to do the job properly – and we hate them for it. We are given 8 bags of mail to deliver when we would still struggle with 5. As a result we have to run around getting rid of mail anyway we can. That’s not good for you and we don’t enjoy it either, it’s an all-out slog and at the end of it you are shattered – and probablly 45mins past your shift end with no overtime comming your way. That’s a daily reality for most postmen hence the large majority in the recent vote. What the company wants to do next would frighten you. As well as make rounds even longer (Arghhhhh!) they want to make most posties part-time casual staff on minimum wage.

This would mean your postie would change regularly, he/she would not know you, would have no long-term commitment to the job or you the customer. We believe a temporary, transient workforce like this would do a terrible job, would dump mail by the barrelload and would inevitably steal mail. The job is often a very hard one and it needs a dedicated workforce with commitment and crucially, enough time to do the job properly – that’s what were fighting for, a fairer job for us, and a much better service for the customers we know would be the result.

Q. So what else does Royal Mail want to do that will effect the post? Don’t they want a quality service too?

A. That’s actually unlikely. Their actions prove that quality of service is NOT their main priority, far from it. Can you remember how many small Post Offices were closed recently by Royal Mail? 7,000 over the past few years? While admittedly society has changed and some were not selffinancing and needed to go, this massive closure program has not improved the public service

Royal Mail is supposed to provide us with! Royal Mail want you to wait 48hrs before you can pick up the packet that they didn’t give to the postman to deliver to you! Well that WILL save the company a bit of money as they wont need as many packet delivery drivers and won’t need to employ ‘Dave’ that extra guy in the office who used to sort and label the packets the same day for customers to pick up.

But who looses big-time there? All of us! Why should you have to wait 48hrs for your packets or get a ’sorry you were out’ note when you were actually in waiting?! Why should you trek halfway across town to find the collection office opening hours have been cut and you can’t get your packet till next week. Why should you get your mail delivered to the wrong street nevermind the wrong number? Surely a sign or an overworkered postie?! Why do you need to join a que 20 people deep on a saturday to collect your packet? So that the company can make 500Million instead of 400Million pounds profit each year? Isn’t this public service, as vital to peoples lives and UK buisness as it is, important enough to warrent sufficient staff numbers?!?!

Does the UK need a better postal service, or is higher profits for the managers and private investors to share round more important? It’s your service, you decide. And there’s more! Have you recently been charged £1 handling fee on a letter (AND had to go collect it!) just because the postage was 1 or 2p short?!! That’s a result of the new and confusing ‘pricing in proportion’ rules.

We don’t understand the various price ranges either! It’s basically a scam to catch people out and make many thousands of £1 handling fee charges everyday. The same aplies with international handling charges which have just doubled to £8 – por que? Again, profit is the driving foce here NOT service. In terms of a future delivery force, as outlined above, Royal Mail managements long-term aim is easily hired&fired part-time casual staff and students being the majority of the delivery workforce. This would lead to an ammateurish, ill-informed (in terms of local knowlegde), ever-changing group of unchecked workers loosing your mail or worse, stealing it to suppliment their terrible minimum-wage wages! Such staff need no pension provision which is convienient as the company are desperately trying to close the pension scheme to new staff.

As we posties all say to ourselves regularly – ‘the public think the service is bad now, they ‘aint seen nuthin’ yet’.

Q. So Royal Mail want to cut and cut, what is their ultimate aim here for the postal service and why should I care?

A. OK were not stupid, we know the current management at Royal Mail were put in place to ‘costcut’ the company and ready it for privitisation. To some this is the ultimate way to make the service ‘better’. Well, ‘better’ for the public and ‘better’ for the board of directors at Royal Mail and private investors are almost certainly mutually exclusive concepts. You may be shocked to hear that the CEO of Royal Mail, Adam Crozier, is the highest remumerated civil servant in the UK.

Yes, that actually IS true. In an apparently ‘failing company’ the guy at the top gets around 3-
4million pounds a year in wages and bonuses. And his mates on the board get plenty too with massive pension pots recently set up by them, for them. But the thing is, the company IS NOT FAILING. This year profits were announced of…321Million pounds for Royal Mail Plc. Now if posties WERE swanning around doing not much then that would be a great advert for swanning about not doing much!

But infact the story is MUCH brighter than that. Last year the company had to pay 850Million pounds into their pension fund black-hole. Yes, so before that ‘unique’ cost the company made over a BILLION pounds profit. Actually, lets be precise here, 1BILLION 171MILLION pounds profit – in one year. Keep on swanning posties! And before you pick your jaw up off the ground, during the past few years there have been huge one-off investments in new machinery meaning profits will be even higher in the future. All this, the company and the government wants to hand over to private investors via privitisation.

They certainly want to privitise the company wholly but in more publicly acceptable stages. And if this happens your service will steadily disintegrate while all the profits will be taken away by Dutch Post aka TNT or some other organisation. You should care about this because your service is likely to get much much worse interms of reliablility, timelyness (is that a word? Ed.) and security. You’re still reading this? Well done! Long isn’t it?

Q. So the company is actually creating vast ammounts of profit? Then why is this strike happening?!?

A. Two answers – the pension-fund black hole and ‘down-stream access’. The pension-fund black hole varies but stands at around 3-10Billion pounds on current forcasts. This massive shortfall in the fund was cased by a 13year ‘pension holiday’ that Royal Mail took from 1990-2003. During this period postal staff still made THEIR pension contributions but the company didn’t pay their share into the pension fund. This was allowed by a change in pension law – introduced by Margaret Thatcher – and the result is a massive black-hole that, as shown above, absorbs most of Royal Mails profit each and every year. So the black-hole is a result of mis-management (and
poor legislation) and we believe therefore that Royal Mail’s owner – the UK government – is direrctly responsible for allowing it to grow to such a devastating level and should pay it off.

If it did so Royal Mail would be one of the most truely-profitable companys in the UK – that’s because it’s workforce are efficient and extrememly hard-working. (Currently the government ARE stating they will pay off the black-hole but only if the company is privatised.

This means the tax payer pays off the defecit but then private investors reap the huge future rewards while we are cut to a part-time workforce on minimum wages! And this from a ‘Socialist’ government! In the not so distant past the government made massive revenues from Royal Mail and that should be the case again – private companies should not be taking the profits of this public service once it gets back into being a great institution.) And secondly, ‘down-stream access’ (introduced by Labour Party liberalisation of the postal market!) allows companied like TNT and UKMail to strip massive ammounts of revenue from Royal Mail. Before liberalisation of the postal market a letter may have made Royal Mail 10p profit, now delivering TNT’s own processed mail may make the company 3p or even make a 2p loss! These companies have been allowed to ‘asset-strip’ the postal service as they take the most profitable parts of the delivery network and Royal Mail are left with the less profitable parts – ie delivering to the Outer Hebrides, quiet housing estates or collecting from rural postboxes. Despite these two massive wedges squeezing Royal Mail the staff are so efficient and hardworking they STILL made a 321Million pound profit last year. How can this be done by lazy postmen swanning around doing no work?! Incredible!! It isn’t possible is it?

The fact is, postmen work hard, harder than most other workers in the UK and the balance sheet proves it.

Q. How can you say posties work hard? Give their cushy jobs to the unemployed they would jump at the chance.

A. Quite a few posties are ex-services and many have a wealth of other work-experience. Without fail most of these guys see the job as the hardest but also the most unrewarding job they have ever done. In short, it’s a crap job and has been since the second delivery was abolished.

The work-load is too high and the managers bully and harass you regularly. In one delivery office in the South recently 10 new part-timers were taken on after voluntary redundancies of full-time staff. Within 2weeks 8 of these new starters had left. They couldn’t handle the sheer volume of work and prefered to go back to the dole. It’s taken months and many new starters and people leaving to eventually fill the positions and it’s been mostly hard-working Polish nationals who have had the determination to take this tough job on. All those new starters left without managerial harassment, they were actually given encouragement, unlike the regular postie who is berrated and bullied sometimes daily. If the job was that cushy would this happen and would we be striking on no-pay? If it was so cushy why, with 1.6% of the UK workforce do Royal Mail postal workers have 10% of the UK’s musculoskeletal work-inflicted injuries?

Q. OK OK I’m getting the idea now. Funny, I thought what the papers were saying was actually true! Anything else you want to moan about then?

A. Yes actually. Our retirement age is being upped to 65 and though that seems to be the norm these days this job involves hard manual labour and it’s not right to tell a 60 year old he/she has to struggle on for another 5 years to get their full pension. If you have a look at a lot of the older guys in the job a high proportion of them have sciatica, dodgy backs, bad knees, limps or bad feet (and wild starring eyes – Ed.). The job takes it’s toll alright and 65 is not realistic, so most guys are being denied their hard-earned full pension becasue they won’t be capable of working to 65. Not right damn it, not by a long way.

Q. OK so you’ve said what Royal Mail want – now what does the Union want and is it unrealistic? I don’t have all day by the way.

A. No probs, I’ll keep it simple. The union want nothing – except to represent us posties. Believe it or not we employ the CWU to talk and negotiate with Royal Mail on our behalf because we are too busy walking round with overweight bags on our shoulders to do this ourselves! So what do the posties want? Shorter rounds. We want a fair and independently assesed workload so that no longer are we asked – or forced – to take out more heavy bags of mail than it is physically possible to deliver in the 3 1/2 hours we are given.

For the sake of our health and wellbeing, and thequality of the service this is essential. In essence, we want an end to being expected to do 5hours delivery work in 3 1/2 hours. If this single step was introduced – a fair independently assessd workload – every postie in the country would be back at work. That is guaranted because every postie at Royal Mail is hard working and dedicated to the job – otherwise they would have left a long time ago as many have. Now would that bankrupt the company? No.

Profits are massive as said and we work hard and efficiently, and are ready to embrace new indoor sorting machines to ensure the profits remain massive. The company is strong and employing more delivery-only postmen (part-timers) will not make this company fail. Infact it will substantially improve the service and bring residential and buisness customers back – what we all want! We are not unrealistic, we’re not talking about going back to 2bag deliveries, but 8bags in 3 1/2 hours, 800 houses, 70-100KG of mail per delivery is simply not sustainable, infact it’s insane. Hard working staff are being forced by threats of being sacked or seriously disciplined to work-on and deliver past their hours for nothing.

That is immoral, it’s everyday at Royal Mail, it’s wrong, illegal, and it must stop. In the mail centres the guys and girls there simply want assurances they wont in large numbers be sacked without warning or consultation. More efficient machines are the way forward, the staff and the union agree, but the answer to their introduction is not to suddenly sack tens of thousands of dedicated long-term staff! A restructuring plan is the solution not execuive action which will see massive sackings when stff could be moved around the company into deliveries or take voluntary reduced hours. Simple as that, indoor staff want assurances, job security, respect at work and no more harasassment and bullying. That’s the strory of this strike. No kidding, that’s it. Unreasonable?

We think not. We know the company has a huge potential for a great service AND massive profits and that’s what we want, respect at work, a fair work-load and a successful company.

So in summary if you want Royal Mail’s wonderful service that you rely on daily to get even worse (and it CAN get a lot lot worse) then support the current Royal Mail management team and their standard-bearer Lord Peter Benjamin Mandelson (aka Baron Mandelson). Who’s laughing at the back there? And, if you want your service to get better (and it CAN as you probably know get a LOT better) then support the guys and girls who know the job, do it everyday and make huge profits for the company by being efficient and hard-working. Vote now! Support a fair work-load for postal workers and your great service will follow. That’s 100% Postie guaranteed!!

Thanks for reading, and we hope your postal service remains that, a service, and not a dissservice. Written by a postie with contributions for accuracy from many many experienced posties at www.RoyalMailChat.co.uk

Inside Sat 24/10/09 This might be the last time people go into Willam Brothers Green Lane Sheffield.

The former site of Williams Brothers, vacated in 1997 when the company moved to a new address. The place is pretty gutted except for a few safes, a smashed TV and a chair covered in pigeon shit, upon the first view that is but there is more

Williams Fasteners, was founded in 1870 by the Williams brothers, and was based at Green Lane in Shalesmoor in Sheffield until 1997. The company then relocated to the outskirts of Sheffield near the M1 to make distribution easier The signs on the outside say it made screws, nails and the likes. Now it is empty and derelict. Past Reports: 1 2 3 4 5 28/10/09 There is fuck of fence round this grand old lady and with the Weather closeing in on her the next few days/ weeks could be the last.

Kiss me goodnight and say my prayers
Leave the light on at the top of the stairs
Tell me the names of the stars up in the sky
A tree taps on the window pane
That feeling smothers me again
Daddy is it true that we all have to die

At the top of the stairs
Is darkness

I closed my eyes and when I looked
Your name was in the memorial book
and what had become of all the things we planned
I accepted the commiserations
Of all your friends and your relations
But there’s some things I still don’t understand

You were so tall
How could you fall?

Some photographs of a summer’s day
A little boy’s lifetime away
Is all I’ve left of everything we’ve done
Like a pale moon in a sunny sky
Death gazes down as I pass by
To remind me that I’m but my father’s son

I offer up to you
This tribute
I offer up to you
This tank park salute

At one end of Eccleshall Woods is Sheffield and District Society of Model and Experimental Engineers Ltd, in summer trees in full bloom you would miss it, in winter you can see parts through the naked trees, I have seen this place walked past her for some years today I whent a walk about.

underclassrising of course in no way condone trespass on live rail sites, readers should be aware this constitutes Criminal Trespass and contravenes Sections 128 to 131 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SOCAP). This can result in a £5000 fine or 6 months imprisonment, not sure on a model one but hey it had to be done.

Of late I have been thinking about urban exploration, how it is time travel, this was something else: Still a working model railway it had it all the detail was there, from little signals, to stations and bridges this had that obsessive anorak on a Sunday feel to the place, on a overcast October day it felt like you had gone back to the film set of say The Prisoner.

Here is the web page http://www.sheffieldsmee.co.uk for Sheffield and District Society of Model and Experimental Engineers Ltd, it was a walk in the woods but you know temptation gets the better, another trespass on railway lines, no doubt more to come.

There,s definitely some feeling of loss somewhere in us, the lack off free, un commercial space that people can use to congregate socially creativity & politically in this city is absolutely deadening.

Every corner is an imposing tower of glass, some kind of fucked up of monument to obscene excess, leering over the passers by, while mammon snares a look, her people are killed because the things of they build in her praise.

Scurrying past, Scurrying on…. in a city of urban paranoia then they ask why we are un well? As we watch “the specture of the feast”

This is how I feel on The Earth Centre, I have done an urban exploration due to the fact she was an empty post industrial space, I had no clue what lay further if I had walked, there was info there of the use by pricks with guns it did not bother myself it was just the images I was wanting but I have seen more in the last few weeks and this place in words needs us to take action.

I wake on Monday 26 Oct 2009 and  there was action at Mainshill, digger-diving at Shipley in Derbyshire and Didcot Power Station in Oxfordshire shut down all this morning, it is clear that direct action against new coal is gaining momentum – no new coal?!

I stand by the fact one is more about Class than Climate, I support those taken action to stop slow the down the RAPE OF MOTHER EARTH those who act to RECLAIM THE EARTH no matter there class we are all caretakers of MOTHER EARTH and we must must act, regards Climate Change I stay still a sceptic.

“Protestors at didcot power station in oxfordshire have blocked the coal conveyors and have scaled the chimney. if by blocking the conveyors they manage to get the plant turned off, they’re going to abseil down inside the chimney. ETA: I’m so pleased to see a couple of things. First it was an action planned in secret, so it stood a chance of working. I’m not totally opposed to the mass public direct action model of the climate camp / swoop etc., but it only really makes sense as a practice / training exercise. also, thank god this isn’t an E.on station. climate change is bigger than E.on so, no cups of tea today, or you might switch off a hospital by accident” (urban 75)

I agree with much of what is said here, might have disagrement on Climate Change? but for a an action what a good one yes opposed to the mass public direct action model of the climate camp / swoop etc more of this and it might just get those who are rapeing Mother Earth for profit not need think more about there actions, That we the defenders of this Earth will stand up.

On Friday 23rd october at 1pm Defenders of the Earth Centre met, there to greet us were two local bobbies and a council representative, we think they were fairly convinced it was going to be squatted 23rd october.

There is alot of business interest in the earth centre site and it is now more important than ever that people come together to stop this amazing resource from been sold and lost we propose that the site be handed to the community as an asset transfer and that the space be used for education, training an skillshare centre, low impact dwelling spaces, cafe and organic food shop, youth club, mums and toddler group, community allotment and gardens, bushcraft, solar cinema, cider brewery, nature reserve, bee keeping, alternative therapies, conference/meeting facilities and spaces, music events, recycling centre and much much more 100% of the locals we have spoke with so far are supportive of our aims to reclaim it as a community space and we are encouraging as much involvement as possible from the people that live in the surrounding areas.

A lot of people from Denaby’s ex-mining community were involved with the site and it had a real DIY vibe to it. As soon as the money started rolling in it was business as usual for Doncaster’s grant monsters and dodgy council types.; Doncaster is an EU ‘assisted’ region that has received a lot of funding over the years, but the usual suspects have made sure that Doncaster residents do not benefit from the millions injected into the region. The closure of the Earth Centre was just one more kick in the teeth for Doncaster residents.

A group of people are meeting at the Earth Centre every Friday at 1pm with the intention of brining it back into the hands of local people. We have spoken with the council and it looks like they are going to let us in next friday for a fruit picking session, just goes to show what a little people power can do.

Some Facts

• 80% of building materials were either reclaimed or recycled
• Europe’s largest flat-foot solar installation.1,300m2 canopy containing 250 photovoltaic panels – generating 80,000 KW of electricity per year and would run the systems and the galleries.
• Conference centre constructed largely from reclaimed materials including telegraph poles, crushed concrete, glass and radiators.
• A shop and café area
• 6500m2 black box gallery space conditioned through an underground thermal store called the Labyrinth
• “Living Machine” sewage treatment plant. A local water treatment system processing all waste water coming from Earth Centre toilets, basins and kitchens, operating entirely through biological reactions, using both bacteria and nutrient-demanding tropical plants in the warmth of a greenhouse.
• water management system that incorporates rainwater harvesting and the treatment, storage and recycling of water use in irrigation and water features and as a wildlife habitat.
• 100,000 new trees including 15 acres of willow as well as some ancient woodlands, two rivers and a variety of ecological grasslands and wetlands
• Demonstrations of organic gardening methods, fruit orchards, willow sculptures, forest and bog gardens, and other flower and sculptural gardens

All this and a pirate ship!

More information about the group and the Earth Centre in general can be found here or email thereismore2lifefolks [at] yahoo.co.uk

There New Blog welovetheearthcentre.blogspot.com/ and of course http://www.facebook.com/

“Protestors at didcot power station in oxfordshire have blocked the coal conveyors and have scaled the chimney. if by blocking the conveyors they manage to get the plant turned off, they’re going to abseil down inside the chimney. ETA: I’m so pleased to see a couple of things. First it was an action planned in secret, so it stood a chance of working. I’m not totally opposed to the mass public direct action model of the climate camp / swoop etc., but it only really makes sense as a practice / training exercise. also, thank god this isn’t an E.on station. climate change is bigger than E.on so, no cups of tea today, or you might switch off a hospital by accident” (urban 75)

I agree with much of what is said here, might have disagrement on Climate Change? but for a an action what a good one yes opposed to the mass public direct action model of the climate camp / swoop etc more of this and it might just get those who are rapeing Mother Earth for profit not need think more about there actions, PROTESTORS have stopped work at a Derbyshire coal mine.

The Twitter feed is here http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23didcot and a first inside report is here this time round well done to all involved

Didcot Power Station: A spokeswoman for RWE npower said power generation at the station has not yet been affected.

The twenty peaceful protesters rode their push-bikes past security guards at 4.30am this morning before splitting into two groups. One team has shut down the giant coal conveyors which feed the boilers at the plant, while a second group of nine men and women has climbed the inside of the iconic 200m-high chimney and reached the top. They say they have enough food and water to stay in place for ‘weeks, not days’ – during which time the plant will be unable to operate. Already the activists in the chimney are securing the route behind them to ensure they can’t be reached by police and security guards.

The huge coal plant in Oxfordshire is owned and operated by German utility company N-Power, which is building new coal plants across Europe and wants to build the first new coal-fired power stations in Britain in 30 years.

A small amount of coal was in the boilers as the invasion occurred. That will last for several hours, after which the protesters will scale the flues at the very top of the chimney (which would normally emit 1000 tonnes of CO2 an hour) and abseil into them, with some of the activists then living inside the chimney for the duration of their occupation. Activists will remain in the flues until their food and water runs out, preventing the station from re-opening.

“We’re a bunch of ordinary people who met at the Climate Camp this summer and were inspired to actually do something about climate change,” said Amy Johnson, 20, one of the protesters at the summit of the huge 200m chimney. “We rode our bikes into the power station this morning and now we’re on the top of the chimney. To be honest we’re quite surprised at how easy it all was. I didn’t quite expect to be here.”

She continued:

“Since E-ON shelved their plans to build a new coal plant at Kingsnorth this month, we realised N-Power is the new frontline. They haven’t dropped their plans to build the dirtiest new power stations in Britain for thirty years, and they’re constructing new coal plants right across Europe. We’re going to stay here until they say they’ll stop building new coal plants. We know that might take a while but we’re patient and we’ve got plenty of supplies to stay up here. We’re talking weeks, not days.”

Amy Johnson added:

“We decided the most powerful place we could set up a Climate Camp would be at the top of N-Power’s most iconic chimney, and that’s what we’ve done. I’d be a liar if said I wasn’t scared climbing up this smokestack, but climate change scares me a lot more. We’ve got people locked on to the coal conveyors and people are going over the top and inside the actual chimney. There’s no way we can be reached, we’re in control of this power plant and we’re not moving any time soon.”

The protesters researched today’s action carefully, putting the safety of N-Power staff and the activists first. The climbers preparing to abseil into the chimney are fully trained and highly experienced. The activists only shut down Didcot after confirming that their actions would not cause power cuts – there is always slack in the National Grid to cope with generating outages, forced or otherwise. If there is a displacement of emissions from coal to gas (or no generation) it will reduce net CO2 emissions in the course of the occupation by tens of thousands of tonnes.

Amy Johnson said:

“In every country CO2 emissions are linked to economic growth, so in countries like the UK our insatiable hunger for more and more products and consumer goods is driving climate change. The world’s finite resources need to be shared more fairly, and the richest countries which got us into this mess need to take the lead in reducing emissions. We’re on this chimney to demand climate justice as the world prepares to meet in Copenhagen. We’re defending human life and people’s property around the world that’s in immediate need of protection from the ravages of rising temperatures.”

While N-Power claims that new coal is necessary to ‘keep the lights on’, in reality its push for new coal plants at Tilbury and Hunterston is motivated by profit, with coal-burning being cheaper than other fuels despite its enormous climate impact. Consultants at Poyry – Europe’s leading independent energy experts – found that Britain could easily meet its energy demands without resorting to new coal as long as the country hits its renewable and energy efficiency targets.

Why coal, why Didcot?

* The single greatest threat to the climate comes from burning coal. Coal-fired generation is historically responsible for most of the fossil-fuel CO2 in the air today, about half of all fossil-fuel carbon dioxide emissions globally.

* Coal-fired power generation is the most environmentally damaging means of generating electricity yet devised. In fact, in carbon terms, coal is the dirtiest fuel known to man.

* Ed Miliband recently announced plans to allow the construction of four new coal plants that would emit about 80% of their emissions into the atmosphere. That would make them the most carbon-polluting new coal plants built in Britain for 30 years. N-Power is behind 2 possible plants, at Tilbury and Hunterston

* As we close old coal-fired and nuclear power stations in the next decade we will lose capacity currently providing around a quarter of our electricity output. But Gordon Brown recently committed to targets which will require us to generate about 35-40% of our electricity from renewables alone by 2020, and the UK also has fairly ambitious energy efficiency targets. According to Europe’s leading independent energy experts, Poyry, if the UK was to hit these existing renewables and efficiency targets, there will be no ‘energy gap.’ We can keep the lights on and cut emissions, and in the long run bring down fuel bills too – all without new coal-fired plants like Kingsnorth.

* The world’s most respected climate scientist, Dr. Jim Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is so concerned about plans for new coal plants in Britain that he took the unprecedented step of writing to the Prime Minister to say that with the decision over whether or not to allow Kingsnorth, Brown has the potential to influence “the future of the planet”

* Coal-fired power generation really is an outdated technology for a 21st century, climate changing world. Even today, Britain’s centralised, inefficient coal-fired power stations waste over two-thirds of the energy they generate. The proposed new coal plant at Kingsnorth, although more efficient than the old one, would still use old-style conventional technology that would waste (as heat) over half of all the energy the power station creates. Compare that with the state-of-the-art power plants they use in Scandinavia which run at up to 94% efficiency.

* Burning coal in the UK has already halted the decline in emissions seen in the 1990s following the ‘dash for gas’ and has undermined progress from other sectors in cutting emissions. Since Labour came to power, carbon dioxide emissions have actually increased and this can be attributed in large part due to ‘the roll to coal’ as well as increased aviation emissions.

* Dr. Jim Hansen, one of the first climate scientists to warn of global warming, says: “The only practical way to prevent CO2 levels from going far into the dangerous range, with disastrous effects for humanity and other inhabitants of the planet, is to phase out use of coal except at power plants where the CO2 is captured and sequestered.”

* Equally, Sir Martin Rees, President of the prestigious Royal Society, wrote to the Government saying, “Allowing any new coal-fired power station, such as Kingsnorth, to go ahead without a clear strategy and incentives for the development and deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology would send the wrong message about the UK’s commitment to address climate change, both globally and to the energy sector.”

“I therefore suggest that the government only gives consent to any new coal- fired power station, such as Kingsnorth, on condition that the operating permits are withdrawn if the plant fails to capture 90% of its carbon dioxide emissions by 2020. This would send a clear policy signal to industry of the need to develop and deploy CCS as quickly as possible.”

* Lord Adair Turner’s inaugural report from the Committee on Climate Change sets out that achieving an 80% domestic reduction in emissions by 2050 means the decarbonisation of the UK power sector must start now and continue through the 2020s, so that we can secure the “almost total decarbonisation of electricity generation by 2030”.

First interview with activist inside coal power station — New Internationalist Blog

This morning, 22 activists occupied Didcot coal power station - the carbon belching monster just down the road from the NI Oxford office. Word has only just started trickling out, but I managed to have a quick phone chat with Amy Johnson, one of the protesters.

‘Where are you?’ I asked. ‘I’m on the upper-most inside level of Didcot’s chimney’ she replied. ‘There are 9 of us climbing the chimney, and 13 people locked to the coal conveyor belt.’

‘How did you get in?’

‘At 4am, we cycled to the power station, cycled around the barrier and just got in!’ There was a bit of a confrontation with security guards, but they didn’t follow them up the chimney. They are now busy barricading themselves in, hanging banners, and starting to answer media calls. They have supplies for the rest of the week.

So: why exactly are they doing this?

‘Well, we just had a massive victory – E.ON announced they probably weren’t going to build Kingsnorth. That means that N-Power, the company that runs this power station, is now the foremost advocate for new coal in the country. They want to build 30 new coal power stations in Britain and Europe. They expect to get planning permission for Hunterston in the next few weeks. We’re saying to them that we won’t leave until they cancel all their plans for new coal.’

But this isn’t just about UK politics. Their banner reads ‘Climate Justice’ and, as we hurtle towards the Copenhagen climate summit, ‘our message is aimed at the whole world,’ says Amy: ‘Coal cannot be the future.’

Are they affiliated with any particular organisation? ‘Not really. We’re a group of people who met at climate camp in London this summer. We learnt about the threat of coal, and were able to attend training sessions run by really experienced activists who gave us the skills and inspiration to do this.’

This is the latest – and most audacious – of a spate of recent direct actions against coal power in the UK. Now all eyes are on N-Power to see how they react…

Background/History

Didcot A Power Station is a coal and gas fired power station, designed by architect Frederick Gibberd. A vote was held in Didcot and surrounding villages on whether the power station should be built. There was strong opposition from Sutton Courtenay but the yes vote was carried, due to the number of jobs that would be created in the area. Building was started on the 2,000 MWe power station for the CEGB during 1964, and was completed in 1968 at a cost of £104m, with up to 2400 workers being employed at peak times. It is located on a 300acres (1.2km2) site formerly part of the Ministry of Defence Central Ordnance Depot. The main chimney is 650ft (200m) tall with the six cooling towers 325ft (99m) each. The station uses four 500MWe generating units. In 2003 Didcot A burnt 3.7Mt of coal.

The station burns mostly pulverised coal, but also co-fires with natural gas. Didcot was the first large power station to be converted to have this function. In addition, a small amount of biomass, such as sawdust, is now burnt at the plant. This was introduced to try to depend more on renewable sources following the introduction of the Kyoto Protocol and, in April 2002, the Renewables Obligation. It is hoped that biomass could replace 2% of coal burnt. In 1996 and 1997, Thales UK was awarded contracts by Innogy (now npower) to implement the APMS supervisory and control system on all of the four units, then allowing to have optimised emissions monitoring and reporting.

Some ash from Didcot A is used to manufacture building blocks at a factory on the adjacent Milton Parkand transported to Thacham near Newbury Berkshire for the manufacture of Thermalite aerated breeze blocks using both decabonized fly and raw ash but most is mixed with water and pumped via a pipeline to former quarries in Radley.

Environmental protests

On the morning of Thursday 2 November 2006, 30 Greenpeace volunteers invaded the power station. One group chained themselves to a broken coal-carrying conveyor belt. A second group scaled the 200 metre high chimney, and set up a ‘climate camp’. They proceeded to paint “Blair’s Legacy” on the side of the chimney overlooking the town. Greenpeace claim Didcot Power Station is the second most polluting in Britain after Drax in Yorkshire, whilst Friends of the Earth describe it as the ninth worst in the UK.

Occupation of Didcot Power Station, Oxfordshire, UK, 2nd November 2006

Didcot A has opted out of the Large Combustion Plants Directive which means it will only be allowed to run for up to 20,000 hours after 1 January 2008 and must close by 31 December 2015. However, due to the amount of running hours the station is currently using, it will more than likely close before then.

Climate campaigners shut down one of UK’s biggest power stations

Greenpeace sets up ‘climate camp’ on top of 200 metre chimney

One of Britain’s dirtiest power stations has been shut down by climate change campaigners.

Thirty Greenpeace volunteers invaded the Didcot coal-fired power station at 5:30am this morning, 2/11/2006. They have immobilised the huge conveyor belts that carry coal into the plant by hitting emergency stop buttons and attaching themselves to machinery. A second group is climbing the 200 metre high chimney, and will set up a climate camp at the top.

The Didcot site is the second most polluting power station in Britain[1], behind Drax in Yorkshire. The Oxfordshire facility was targeted because – like most of the Britain’s power stations – two-thirds of the energy it generates is wasted, making a massive contribution to climate change. The campaigners are demanding that the Government phases out these kind of coal fired power stations and instead backs localised – or “decentralised” – power generation, which is much more efficient.

The occupation comes in the week Sir Nicholas Stern released his ground-breaking study, warning of a global catastrophe if carbon emissions are not slashed. On Monday Tony Blair said: “This disaster is not set to happen in some science fiction future many years ahead, but in our lifetime.” Meanwhile his government continues to allow inefficient power stations like Didcot to dominate the UK’s electricity industry.

Most British power stations waste two-thirds of the energy they generate in the form of heat escaping up their cooling towers. By locating smaller generators close to where energy is used, the heat created in power stations can be captured and used to heat our homes. So-called “decentralised energy” is already working in many European countries and powering cities like Copenhagen and Malmo. Along with a range of renewable energy technologies it is the key to modernising the electricity industry and slashing its massive contribution to global climate change. Woking Council has reduced its carbon footprint by 77% by employing decentralised technologies.

Greenpeace campaigns director Blake Lee-Harwood, who is part of the team that shut Didcot’s conveyor belt, said: “Power stations like this are energy dinosaurs. This one power station emits over six millions tonnes of CO2 a year, that’s more than the 29 lowest polluting countries put together. And, shockingly, Didcot could halve its emissions overnight if it switched from burning coal to gas.”

Didcot power station is the second most polluting power station in the UK, after Drax in east Yorkshire. On November the 2nd 2006 a group of Greenpeace protesters gained access and painted “Blair’s Legacy” on the large tower, and also chained themselves to the coal chutes in an attempt to shut down the power station.

They was not asking you to save the rainforest within 24 hours. Instead they was asking that you save a couple of ex-quarry pit lakes in Oxford for the locals. Npower wants to fill them with pulverised fuel ash from their Didcot coal fired power station nearby.

Npower really have been unreasonable on this and have even used court orders and security guards to stop local people visiting the lakes. It’s ‘big business’ way out of control. More on the campaign; http://www.saveradleylakes.org.uk/

What is urban exploration then aka urban archaeology

Urban Exploration is discovering what lays in our derelict society behind those closed doors and tucked away areas of our towns, cities and countryside. You can find military ruins and bunkers from the World War II and the cold war, abandoned mental asylums and derelict industries, an absance of the current order.

These places are unlikely to be seen by the everyday public and as redevelopment occurs these places will be lost forever, taking their history and secrets with them. Ignorant people stereotype “Urban Explorers” as young teenage males with nothing better to do than “break into buildings”. They couldnt be more wrong

Urban Exploration is simply the idea i can enter that secret world and never return; or, better, that we could burn away this one, to reveal the one beneath entirely underclassrising.net.