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Somers Town Residents Protest Corporate Land Sell-Off

samba queen | 24.11.2007 19:00 | Animal Liberation | Free Spaces | Social Struggles | London | World

Today Somers Town Residents came out and protested government plans to sell off one of the few remaining undeveloped plots of land left in Euston / Kings Cross area.

This Land Is Our Land
This Land Is Our Land

Homes Not Offices
Homes Not Offices

Fence
Fence

Along the Fence
Along the Fence

Camden Needs Council Housing
Camden Needs Council Housing

our land is not for sale
our land is not for sale

Our Kids need Places to Play
Our Kids need Places to Play



The Rabbit Sings
The Rabbit Sings

Somers Town People's Forum
Somers Town People's Forum

Stop the Medical Research Centre
Stop the Medical Research Centre

Whose Streets? Our Streets
Whose Streets? Our Streets

At the British Library
At the British Library

Don't Forget St. Pancreas Residents
Don't Forget St. Pancreas Residents

British Library Security move in
British Library Security move in

British Library Insecurity Guards assault Cameraman
British Library Insecurity Guards assault Cameraman

Mum & Kid
Mum & Kid

On the streets
On the streets


Somers Town is a mainly working class neighborhood close to the Euston & Kings Cross terminals. There's a plot of land there, at Brill Place WC1, behind the British Library, that that belongs to the central government, who are planning to sell it on the open market to highest bidders.

The most likely contenders in the frame at the moment to buy the land are a bunch of property developers who want to build luxury flats near to the new Eurostar terminal or a consortium involving the University of London, who want to build an animal research / contagious disease scientific establishment.

Neither option is particularly appealing to the local residents, who are campaigning for the site to be used for a mixture of social housing (which there's a desperate shortage of in the area) and community spaces / facilities (also very scare)

So today the local residents under the banner of the Somers Town People's Forum held a protest "demonstrating the change they to want to see" from around 11-am until just after 12 noon. The protestors ranged in age from toddlers with their mums, through to school kids and pensioners. They included people born in the area, who’d lived they all their lives, and more recent migrants to the UK. They made placards and banners, and put them up on the fence surrounding the site. There were speakers, folk singers and London Rhythms of Resistance samba band.

After about half an hour the protest decided to march to the British library on the Euston Road along the road, chanting “whose Street? Our Streets! Who’s Land? Our Land!’ - ’What do we want social housing! When do we want it now!’ On arriving at the library, security men from the British library came out and attacked an ITN cameraman who was filming the protest, to the massive disapproval of the crowd.

After this less than neighborly behavior, the protestors decided moved off again and processed with the samba band around the council estates of Somers Town, to the cheers of the locals, before finishing up again at the site of the contested land at Brill Place.

samba queen

Comments

Display the following 2 comments

  1. More emphasis on the lab will get you more support! — lola
  2. Aniaml testing holds back resaerch into human health. See www.curedisease.net — A L F / A R M