Remember everyone going to the camp that there are plenty of people cheering you. You're part of a a movement that has to succeed, so go play your part, do yourself proud and be an inspiration to us all.

How very slow to load the Climate Camp website is? Also some of the directions for the Caravan Events are somewhat misleading, for example:

"4-6pm: nr Oxleas Wood Cafe, Crown wood lane, Shooters Hill, Greenwich, SE18 35A."

The postal address takes you to somewhere near Dulwich on a Google map. So where is the meet up point then? Nr Oxleas Wood Cafe is a bit vague and it conflicts with directions to be found elsewhere:

"4-6pm EVENT: Beyond Cars, Oxleas Wood, Welling.
7pm: Dinner/meeting/ welcome for new caravaners at Welling Methodist Church Hall."

So which/where is it?

i took time out of my life to attend both Drax and Heathrow camps... (costing me a huge chunk out of my monthly budget)
but have decided against coming to the camp in Kent this year.
reasons being, i feel the camp has an arrogant, middle class clique of "organisers"- who claim the camp has no leaders (but aggressively shout at you if ur not in bed by 11pm) and claim the camp has anarchist roots, whilst appearing (to me) as a bunch of george mombiet arse licks....
yes, i support the camp...
but no, i am not going out of my way to support it, as i do not wish to be judged/looked down on/be bossed around by a bunch of snobs posing as protestors

"i feel the camp has an arrogant, middle class clique of organisers"

Since when did you have to follow what the organisers say?

I agree some things have changes, the cc video is a living joke. There is a major focus on the "consensus" decision making to take an action (for about a minute and a half of it) and its complete nonsense, along with most of the liberal comments and lack of opinions by anarchists (basically lacking any broader opinion on the camp and its ideals).

However, activists last year did what they want, blockaded what they wanted, climbed on what they wanted, etc, and this year anarchists will hopefully get to round to smashing and reclaiming what we want. Last year it was a massive tea party which made us realise our potential for the next camp and day of action; as most activists weren't perpared for how much we were going to achieve, most thought we couldn't even shut down baa's hq..

People have organised the event, but they have NO control of how it goes down. All they are doing now is "generalising" about the camp to attract as many people as possible, probably also to remove as much responsibility from the organisers/meeting attendees for the damage once the vandals do get to work on Kingsnorth and the other climate criminals.

The most important thing is do what you feel works and you're comfortable with.

Ecoanarchist says it is completely nonsense that all actions require consensus and indeed, having set up his strawman, he is right. The climate camp builds consensus over the mass public actions only, not any affinity group actions. He says that activists last year did what they want, blockaded what they wanted, climbed on what they wanted, etc but again how that can be taken as a critique of consensus processes at the camp is unclear since the blockades etc where what the camp wanted.

Meanwhile 'Protester' also took issue with consensus processes and said that he felt that previous camps had an arrogant, middle class clique. He appeared to dismiss the idea that the camp has anarchist roots on the basis of people not wanting to be kept awake at night by others who wanted to stay up late.

In his reply, Ecoanarchist slags off some video for it's "liberal comments and lack of anarchist opinion" but just like the fence pulling video doesn't represent every aspect of the camp (although the Evening Standard pretends it does), this other video can not in anyway be seen as an 'official' production of the camp or a single party line. If there is no video discussing the camps anarchists roots it because nobody has made one, nothing else.

Contrary to what Ecoanarchist says, people who have organised the event do have some control over how it goes and if his definition of anarchy would have it otherwise then I for one wouldn't want to live in his world. Anarchy is about the rejection of rules imposed from outside and about recognizing that excising our own liberties shouldn't impact on the liberties of other.

I have to question the motives for Ecoanarchist's post as somebody referring to vandals getting to work on Kingsnorth looks to be doing the work of the cops, hardly useful at this time while police are putting out press releases attempting to justify their raid yesterday. Indymedia is an open forum and both the mainstream media, police and private enterprises have attempted to use anonymous posts on indymedia to discredit campaigns.

How far from the nearest train station is it to the camp-for walking that is?

jub, how about having a look in the obvious places (ie climate camp website) rather than getting other people to do your clicking!  http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/home?q=node/11

Protestor, hope you've had the chance to go along to the monthly open organising meetings to have your input, or if you can't take weekends out, be part of any of the working groups - that way there wouldn't be such a clique, eh (if there is one).

Not having leaders, and agreeing how the camp works in advance so it's the best possible community for all are two VERY DIFFERENT things.

Unless you're a real individualist (anarchist) who thinks you should be able to do what the fuck you like and fuck anyone else who wants to go to bed (to do actions the next day?) or do whatever, then sounds like it's not the place for you (& vice versa). If you're more of a collectivist (anarchist) then you should be there to make it how it should be - radical and organised along anarchist lines.

Same with other comments - if you don't like one thing, that doesn't mean everyone/the whole camp is like that - that wouldn't be very anarchist or diverse would it?!!

"jub, how about having a look in the obvious places (ie climate camp website) rather than getting other people to do your clicking!  http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/home?q=node/11"

To the idiot that posted the above quote-I did look at that page and many others and have yet to find the answer. I hear that the shuttles and buses from the station might very well be stopped on the action day so it is a valid question-how far is it to walk? If it's 10kms people will have to arrive very early. If someone knows the answer they could put it here where more people will see it. I have emailed to camp website to ask them to put it there too.

So, the Tinsley cooling towers are coming down on the 24 8 08 at 3am we are told, we have been a little busy and circumspect as much as we can be when there is cctv all over the place.

That is problem one, but where there is a will there is a means, is there not. Yep, we would like the challenge plus fun of it all, it only comes down to trespass (forgive those who trespass against us and those we trespass against) and a little walking, this in mind strong footwear, a willingness to push it a little and we might just end up being the last people to document those cooling towers.

To the plan, we feel a meet on the 9th Aug 08 could be a cool idea, now we ask you to contact us for time location and the rest of our thoughts, you never know who could reading.

We need more than six people to make this happen no more than 12, as getting that lot to where we need them to be could prove a little hard.

Only people who are calm relaxed and cool please, as this is a direct action assault on the cooling towers with an aim of getting some media coverage and just fucking off E-ON and there rudeness and inconsideration at the demolition of a Sheffield Landmark.

If you are up for a little bit of Direct Action, a desire to get some images plus make a point then contact us..

HISTORY

Blackburn Meadows electricity generating station was built by the Sheffield Corporation in 1921,mainly to support the steel industry in the Lower Don Valley. The station was expanded in the 1930s, requiring the construction of Cooling Towers 6 and 7 in 1937-8 to supplement earlier square cooling towers to the north east.

These new hyperbolic shaped towers were designed by LG Mouchell and Partners. This was the same partnership responsible for the first hyperbolic cooling towers in the country (built in Liverpool in 1925) and some 150 towers subsequently built across the United Kingdom. Blackburn Meadows was one of those power stations nationalised to form part of the National Grid after the Second World War. It was decommissioned and mainly demolished in the 1970s.

ASSESSMENT

The Blackburn Meadows cooling towers are nationally rare surviving remains of pre-nationalisation large scale electricity generation. They are thought to be the only pre-1950 hyperbolic cooling towers surviving nationally, with nearly all the other 500 or so towers in the country dating to 1960or later. In addition to their early date, the association with LG Mouchell, the design features such as the banding and the thinness of the shell all give the towers interest. The addition of the spray coating of concrete following the 1964 disaster at Ferrybridge adds further interest by showing a development in the industry.

Even without the clouds of steam that signify operational examples, the cooling towers are also very prominent landmark features, providing a visual indication of the former scale and importance of the Sheffield steel industry in the Lower Don Valley.

However the two hyperbolic cooling towers are just one component of an extensive complex that formerly existed. The plant at Blackburn Meadows generated electricity by using steam turbines to turn electric generators, with the steam produced using coal fired boilers, the coal supplied by rail.

The railway system, coal handling plant, boiler complex, turbine and generating halls, as well as the switchgear for connecting the plant to the electricity grid and the earlier square cooling towers have all been lost. Water used by the steam turbines would have been maintained within a closed system, the steam leaving the turbine then passing through a condenser to change it back to hot water before being reboiled to produce steam to turn the turbine.

The cooling towers were used to cool water circulating in a separate system that was used to cool the condensers other equipment.

With the demolition of the rest of the generating station, the surviving cooling towers have lost their context so it is difficult to see how they functioned as an integrated part of a much wider plant.

Functionally, cooling towers still in use consist of far more than just the shell of the tower that survives at Blackburn Meadows. In operation, water is piped into the lower portion of the cooling tower into a complex network of pipes or troughs ending with sprinklers.

A fine mist of water is then sprayed on to a timber or asbestos lattice of staging and screens filling the lower 4-5m of the tower, with the water being cooled via natural evaporation aided by air being drawn upwards by the tower above. Any water droplets carried by this updraft are intercepted by a layer of louvers positioned above the sprinklers. In addition, operational cooling towers have a network of maintenance access ways. All bar one pipe in one of the towers has been stripped out from the
cooling towers at Blackburn Meadows, leaving very little indication of how the towers actually functioned.

The Blackburn Meadows cooling towers are thus not only a very partial survival of an electricity generating station, they are also only a very partial survival of a pair of cooling towers. Even given the national context of the highly fragmentary survival of the pre-nationalisation power generation industry, designation of the Blackburn Meadows cooling towers cannot be justified.

The rest of the generating station has been lost, depriving the towers of their functional context and the loss of pipe work, staging, screens and access ways means that a highly significant part of the interest of the towers as cooling towers has also been lost.

www.tinsley-towers.org.uk/pages/english_heritage.pdf

If you've ever driven into Sheffield from the M1, you'll be familiar with the Tinsley Cooling Towers - a piece of industrial landscape that's become one of the city's most famous landmarks. For now at least.

Three quarters of the public want them saved

The BBC online poll established www.bbc.co.uk/southyorkshire/content/image_galleries/tins... that three quarters of the public want them saved. This makes more than half a million supporters in Sheffield and Rotherham alone. E.ON's own poll was flawed by a mix-up of criteria.

English Heritage wrote www.tinsley-towers.org.uk/pages/english_heritage.pdf that the Towers, built in 1938, are the oldest surviving hyperbolic Cooling Towers in the UK and that their prominence provides a visual indication of the former scale and importance of Sheffield’s steel industry.

A scheme valued at £60m for a 'green' power station in Tinsley was approved a few weeks back, despite concerns that it could add to pollution in part of Sheffield with some of the worst pollution levels.Councilors backed the project for the site of the old Blackburn Meadows power station, next to the doomed cooling towers, after being told that it will generate renewable energy for 40,000 homes.

Power company E.On UK wants to burn waste wood and other biomass fuels, such as specially grown crops including willow and elephant grass.

Will this mean more pollution for the people of this area? Yes it will why not turn the whole lot with the towers standing into a nature reserve right up to back of Magana, use the derelict railway line at an extension for Supertram to Rotherhem with a stop at Magana onto the nature reserve and then one at the new business park just afther Magana, turn over the derelict land at Sheffield Road over to community allotments and get E-ON and Medowhell to donate some cash for the planting of Chery blossoms around the area both would take out a lot of pollution in the area.

The towers are going, but do have to except the plans for this area? and if the owners of Medowhell (British Land) get there way yet more increased traffic and pollution for the people of this area, never mind the loss of our social heritage of Sheffield Steal, we only need to look at Williams Fasteners Green Lane Shalesmoor Sheffield to see the total disregard of our heritage,
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucible_steel see urban explores reports here  http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/main/showthread.php?t=6036

As a week of action  http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/07/404961.html starts over E-ON,s plans in Kent we need to look towards alternatives  http://projectsheffield.wordpress.com/2008/07/14/dear-camp-for-climate-action
More here  http://www.tinsley-towers.org.uk and there is more reading google
Tinsley Cooling Towers, Sheffield - Icons of England or got  http://pretentiousartist.com

Reading Protestor's comments I found that some of my own experiences at last year's camp came flooding back.

On the one hand I left the camp feeling inspired and empowered but on the other, I was frustrated by the omnipresence of a group who seemed to be both advocating consensus but also demanding things were done their way. Of course, we all had the choice to ignore them but there was an implication that in doing so, we would be putting the whole of the camp in jeopardy.

At Heathrow, I was called to a 'mini-spokes' meeting late one night about allowing embedded journalists on site, something that I disagreed with and wasn't prepared to agree to either from my own point of view, or on behalf of my neighbourhood. Someone from another neighbourhood felt the same way but we were both badgered and bullied to agree. We insisted that we be allowed to take this to our neighbourhoods and afterwards those who had been facilitating the meeting wouldn't speak to us!

I still fully support the work of the camp but this year myself and others from our local collective have decided to undertake 'Climate Camp on Tour' actions in our local community. We are threatened with an open cast mine here in Telford and it seems to me to be just as important to take action on this as it is to traipse down to Kingsnorth, clocking up the fuel miles as we go.

I do have regrets that I'm not at the main camp as the others have been mainly positive but there is an element of authoritarianism creeping in to the camp psyche and that's a worry for me.

I'd hardly describe last year's event as a tea-party though, Eco-Anarchist. I found I didn't have much time for tea in between construction tasks, supporting the neighbourhood, police watch, meetings, workshops and banner making, etc. As for the organisational meetings, they're not always easy to get to and even if you can make it, you still have to deal with a certain clique who think they're running the show.

It's all very well for the likes of George Monbiot to use the camp as a way of getting themselves a bit of kudos in the Guardian but that doesn't do much to dispel the image of the camp as a bunch of anti-working class bourgeois snobs and gives ammunition to people like Dave Douglass (NUM) and Ian Bone who are claiming that it is.

"To the idiot that posted the above quote-I did look at that page and many others and have yet to find the answer."

The answer can easily be found out via the many mapping sites. They have zoom in and zoom out buttons, for you to get a large scale map of the area from which distances can be measured. Kingsnorth Power Station is marked on some of the sites. As the crow flies it looks about 10km from Strood station to the camp.

Maps can also be purchased in shops and contain much information which may be useful to those planning to attend.

but I'd really like to extend my support to all who are involved. Its good too see that the discussion on here is about practical things like consensus and community-building, rather than a squalid debate about the confusing white noise coming from the media. I wish everyone at the camp the best and I hope that the plant gets shut down for good.

Just wondering if the shuttle buses to the camp are still running during the day, or are they being interfered with?

One driver was cautioned and held up for quite a while but the rest continued. The issue was that some people apparently gave donations for the running of the shuttle buses and the police threatened to nicked drivers for running an unlicensed taxi service.