(text taken from website : www.campbling.org)

Camp Bling announces emergency relaunch on third anniversary.


'The global situation has changed dramatically since the protest site was first set up specifically to stop the road - both in terms of the overall environmental impacts and accelerating pace.' (www.campbling.org)

Protesters and supporters at Camp Bling will mark a third full year of occupation to stop the controversial Priory Crescent road widening on Tuesday 23rd September 2008 with an emergency relaunch to address environmental catastrophe as it unfolds and accelerates around the world.

The camp are set to go live with new website:  http://www.campbling.org on the anniversary date, to support their objective to stop the road widening, whilst at the same time taking a dramatic new turn to discuss critical issues such as consumer culture, peak oil production, mass extinction, and the appropriate response to these and other crises. (1)

Resident Gavin said, 'we could not have predicted how quickly the world was going to change when we first set up Camp Bling three years ago. Now we feel compelled to address the fundamental need for lifestyle change during the coming crash, as western society overshoots the ecological limits of the earth.’

Latest member Paul added, 'funding towards the £13.5m Priory Crescent scheme is unlikely to be granted to the Council before 2011. A further three years defending the site will provide ample opportunity for us to begin to push a far more radical agenda. We have always walked the walk - now is the time for us to start talking all about it.’ (2)

People are invited to visit both the virtual world of the new website, plus the real one of the road protest as the Blingers dig in for a fourth winter, with a comprehensive revamp and ongoing building work planned, and support therefore still very much required from the local community.

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ENDS.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

1) See 'Tipping points' page at  http://www.campbling.org/ for latest background data and definition of peak oil theory.

2) Southend Borough Council latest Priory Crescent cost estimate of £11.5m presented to Department for Transport does not include £2m already spent to date.