Matilda Squatted!

Matilda | 14.06.2006 17:15 | Free Spaces | Sheffield

The Matilda Social Centre in Sheffield was faced with eviction today and in response it was squatted.

This building is now squatted...

OK, we are off then...

Media interview

The day started at 8:15am when people from Yorkshire Forward, the owners of the building, and their legal representatives from Lambert Smith Hampton turned up with 3 vans full of builders from The Allen Group of Companies and strted rehanging the front door and changing the locks.

Lambert Smith Hampton posted a "No Unauthorised Entry" notice:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2006/06/342707.html#c149477

They told people in the building that they had till 5pm to remove anything they wanted to keep. The gig space collective,

http://www.matilda.aktivix.org/collectives/gig-space/ and the cafe collective,

http://www.matilda.aktivix.org/collectives/cafe/ removed some of their things.

The builders were handed Section 6 notices:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2006/06/342707.html#c149482

And then the builders and the legal folks left saying they would be back at 5pm...

At meeting of over 20 people that started at around 2:30pm then decided to change the lock on the front door and squat the building. It was also decided that for the next few days general Matilda meetings will be held every day at 6pm. It was also agreed that the fundraiser on Saturday should also go ahread:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2006/06/342748.html

Reporters from the BBC turned up just before 5pm and then shortly after two people from Lambert Smith Hampton turned up, were told that the building was now squatted, and they promptly left...

So, one year on from Matilda serving as the convergence centre and independant media centre for the G8 protest in Sheffield it starts a new stage of it's history as a squatted social centre.

Matilda
Homepage: http://www.matilda.aktivix.org/

Additions

Radio Sheffield 7 o clock bulletin

14.06.2006 18:57

Radio Sheffield, 7pm, penultimate story: transcript -

A group of people from Sheffield are refusing to leave a building they've been using as a social centre for the past year. They've been occupying the site on Matilda Street, even though they don't own it or pay rent.

They were told they had to go by five o clock today, but they're still there.

Mark Cohen says Yorkshire Forward, the actual owners, would just let it fall into ruin.

"If Yorkshire Forward said, 'tomorrow, we're going to move in here and start redeveloping it," we'd have much less of a case to answer. But the fact is, what they're likely to do is do nothing with it for an unspecified period of time, in which the building will decay, and a resource that could be used by people in Sheffield will no longer be here."

(Followed by fluffy story about a lamb trapped on a ledge out by Ladybower. It
was rescued, you'll be pleased to know.)

Dan Aktivix
mail e-mail: dan@aktivix.org
Homepage: http://www.coveredinbees.org