Eviction threat to nursery invaders
The Nursery Social Centre Collective | 16.09.2004 23:20 | Free Spaces
Some of the collective outside Birmingham County Court
"Community Space or Lottery Waste?" banner on the Social Centre's balcony
September 16 2004
A group who have transformed a disused city council nursery into a community centre today vowed to stay on, despite being threatened with eviction.
Members of the Social Centre Collective reopened a disused nursery building in Selly Oak and set up a free coffee house, facilities for children and film nights.
But Birmingham City Council yesterday obtained a Possession Order to force the 20-strong group to leave the centre in Bournbrook Road.
Judge William Wood said: "I have every sympathy for the defendants who would want to make use of the facilities as a cafe, a nursery and a planned library.
"The defendants are well intentioned, but I have to apply the law." The collective refurbished the property and have held art exhibitions since they entered last month.
Birmingham County Court heard that the council served them with an eviction notice on August 19 and they were told to leave by August 21 but they ignored the order.
Collective spokeswoman Sarah Evans said: "We entered the building without breaking anything and we have transferred it back in to a usable space.
"We really want to get this wasted space back into use with the community. Local residents are using the space as well.
"We will continue what we are doing and we will speak to the council."
A city council spokesman said: "The building was unfit for use as a nursery.
"As the owner of the building the council has rightly taken action to attempt to remove people who are using it illegally. The future of the property will be decided at a later date."
* IS the council right or should the collective be allowed to stay? Write to Evening Mail, PO BOX 78, Weaman Street, Birmingham, B4 6AY or send an email to
icfeedback@mrn.co.uk 
http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/eveningmail/news/tm_objectid=14649166%26method=full%26siteid=50002%26headline=eviction%2dthreat%2dto%2dnursery%2dinvaders-name_page.html
The Nursery Social Centre Collective
e-mail:
scbrum@mail.com
Homepage:
http://stuffit.org/nursery
Comments
Hide the following 3 comments
now our report from court...
16.09.2004 23:43
We got to court on time, but because of the size of the collective representing the social centre, we had to wait around while they sorted out a bigger court for us. So finally got in around an hour late at 12.15, because we were using an old squatting case in our defence the judge put things on hold so he could go swot up on things, so we went back into court at 12.50, again some more faffing about and the judge decided he wanted his lunch so adjourned till 2.15, which meant waiting around for an hour. The council throught out the day were well flakey as far as I'm concerned, we'd proved in a few cases that their ''evidence'' was illegal, but at 3 the judge decided to go in their favour anyway.
To be honest that wasn't a shock at all, what was a surprised was how sympathetic the judge was to us, all through out the proceedings he kept referring to the centre as ''their good work'' or ''their community project'' we took photos and leaflets etc to show him and he seemed very impressed. Which has helped us a lot media wise. Throught out the day we had a journo from the Evening Mail covering us and a local news presenter from Midlands Today following us, both have done really sympathetic pieces for us the tv crew came back to the centre for interviews and a cup of tea and it went out on the 6.30 and 10.30 news we also did a radio interview for Radio WM which went out live and was made even more better by being followed by the news of the fox hunting ban
we're going to fight the eviction. and we're going to try and get a licence to stay for a few more months, because we have evidence that the site isn't to be used until 2006.
As for the garden, when the issue of boundaries came up, it was discovered that our secret garden down the bottom isn't owned by the council because it was lottery funded by the parents and kids of the nursery, so when evicted we'll move onto that and keep up the fight.
The Nursery Social Centre Collective
e-mail:
scbrum@mail.com
Homepage:
http://stuffit.org/nursery
join in the debate on Birmingham City Council's bulletin board!
16.09.2004 23:50
The Nursery Social Centre Collective
e-mail:
scbrum@mail.com
Image of the Evening Mail article
22.09.2004 11:29
The Evening Mail article on our doorstep
Notice how the headline and the sub-headline of the article doesn't fit with the actual content of the piece accurately written by Patrice John. We believe that the news editor(s) at the Evening Mail altered the original heading of her piece.
What do you think?
Perhaps someone at Birmingham's Evening Mail News Desk can enlighten us?
The Nursery Social Centre Collective
e-mail:
scbrum@mail.com
Homepage:
http://stuffit.org/nursery