About 500 people gathered at the Hackney Empire in east London yesterday (28th October 2000) to protest at drastic cutbacks recently unveiled by the local council after it revealed an overspend of nearly 40 million pounds (US$62 million).

Union representatives, concerned citizens and speakers from a variety of political parties addressed the audience and outlined the possible effects of proposed reductions in crucial services which are now being implemented by Hackney Council management. Several kindergartens for Hackney under-5s have already been shut in this London borough which has some of the UK’s most extreme poverty. Other council-funded services are being affected by the cutbacks.

A National Union of Teacher’s (NUT) representative, speaking on behalf of Hackney school teachers, received a round of applause when she outlined "an enormous shutdown (of Hackney) on November 6th". Addressing the crowd within the classic Victorian playhouse she referred to the successful anti-Poll tax movement of 1990 and called for people to organise within their communities to resist the stringent reductions of services within a community already suffering from years of under-investment.

Union representatives from Unison (one of the UK’s largest workers’ representative bodies) outlined how Hackney Council are attempting to use under-hand tactics to introduce new privatisation initiatives. There was a round of applause when he compared the recent Governmental decision to inject 5 billion pounds (US$7.75billion) of UK tax-payers’ money to improve safety on the privatised UK rail system while claiming that there is no money available to assist cash-strapped Hackney Council. Later on the crowd ‘whooped’ their support as the street-cleaner declared that his branch of the union was considering cutting their membership of the Labour Party who are the current ruling party of the UK and Hackney Council.

At Fernbank Nursery in Hackney parents found out exactly how quickly the Council has been instituting the cuts in services. Parents came to collect their children on Friday 22 October and found individually-addressed letters from the Council informing them that facility was now shut and that from Monday they would have to take their children to another facility over a mile away.

"They told us that there was a block on spending and that they couldn’t afford to pay agency workers any more" explained a parent who was maintaining the 24-hour occupation that has been running for the last 10 days. He said that parents had taken the decision to occupy the nursery when they realised that once outside the building there would be no chance of keeping it open. "If you walk out that’s it - you don’t get another chance. At least like this we’re going to get some sort of answer."

Parents then detailed how the local police had arrived and basically informed them of their rights as ‘squatters’, within hours people were devising a press campaign and by Monday morning the occupation was the lead item on two local TV channels as well as receiving favourable coverage in national newspapers The Guardian, The Times and The Telegraph.

With the occupation well underway parents are hopeful of a positive resolution: "Our intention, as a campaign, is to force the council to re-open".

It is clear from the mood in this corner of East London that the municipal authorities are facing growing anger and mounting resistance to deeply unpopular economic plans. All eyes are firmly fixed on November 6th.