Roundup of recent actions and campaigns:

Ship Blocked Against Marine Quarrying: Ministers are planning to give the go-ahead to strip clean a vitally important area of the English Channel (the Median Deep - halfway between the Sussex coast and northern France) by mining nearly 200 million tonnes of gravel from the seabed to satisfy the house-building boom on the Southeast. The good news is that residents of Sussex are not taking this lying down. On 11th November, the latest in a series of actions against the dredging saw people using bicycle locks to close the Newhaven Swing Bridge on the A259 in East Sussex, blocking the departure of a Hanson dredging ship at high tide on Sunday.

Morecambe Bay Bridge Project - Directors Resign After Protests: Two directors of a company planning to build a bridge across one of Britain's last wildernesses, and most protected wildlife area, have resigned after local protests. English Nature have expressed their opposition to the Bay Bridge scheme, which is nevertheless being spun as a 'green bridge' because of wave turbines that may be built at the same time. On 4th November, local people with banners and drums stopped work at Renewables Northwest - the General Manager there, Julian Carter was also a Director of BABC, the company behind the bridge project - he resigned later that day [see report and background]. Protests also took place at the Lancaster Environment Centre, whose Director Bill Davies was also a Director of BABC [see report and background] - he resigned a few days later.

Hastings Bypass Turns in Link Road: Anti-roads campaigners had thought they had seen off the Hastings Bypass, but now part of the route has been resurrected as the Bexhill Link Road. This scheme has some of the worst environmental aspects of the original scheme ­ cutting through ancient woodland and endangering wetland bird species. There’s a route walk on Sunday 21st Nov [see SchNEWS | related news at Road Alert]

Save Coate Water Country Park from Development: On Saturday 13 November, local campaigners surrounded the lake at Coate Water Country Park in Swindon with a chain of over a thousand cardboard cut-out hands, each with someone's personal message of why Coate Water is special to them. The campaigners are trying to save the park (a Site of Special Scientific Interest) from the development plans of the local council [see report and pics | Save Coate Campaign]

Residents Oppose Illegal Tree Felling: On Saturday 30th October hundreds of local residents demonstrated in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, against illegal tree felling at the Millpond site that took place on 19th October - then many residents tried to obstruct the chainsaws - several residents were assaulted, and although they stopped the chainsaws, many of the trees had been cut down [see Pics 1, 2 | Background]

See also: Barnstaple Western Bypass Gets Go Ahead
Scotland: Dump protesters take direct action against landfill company
Oxford Friends of the Earth oppose county rubbish incineration plans
Manchester Uni students protest against tree trashing
"Esso-sponsored" Scientists @ the Campaign Against Climate Change march