Judge Crabtree warned us that while judgements in magistrates’ courts usually take between 45 minutes and two hours, this one was likely to take considerably longer. He was right; his judgement took three-and-a-half hours. But it was a judgement worth waiting for.
Six activists were being prosecuted for ‘aggravated trespass’ for occupying trees along the route of the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road in January 2013 (see PN 2554, 2566).
The first two hours or so of the hearing in…
Grannies Are In Action (GAIA) set up a ‘car wash’ in the
floodwaters of Combe Haven, East Sussex, on 12 January.
Photo: Marta Lefler
Over half the charges against Combe Haven Defenders (CHD) anti-roads protesters have been dropped or abandoned, or have resulted in not guilty verdicts, in the four trials so far concluded. At the time of going to press two trials were still underway, continuing into early February.
CHD, an East Sussex anti-roads…
While ‘[m]any people believe that America’s addiction to automobiles is a cultural problem’, in reality – as cartoonist Andy Singer explains in this wonderful ‘pictographic examination’ of the American transport system – the country’s ‘automobile addiction has more to do with politics, government agencies, and the [US] tax structure’.
Indeed, in the 1920s, most North Americans lived in cities, many of which had great public transit and inter-urban rail systems, leading the president…
Anti-road protesters in Hastings are celebrating the release of embarrassing secret information about the £100m Bexhill-Hastings link road (BHLR), and the dropping of charges against many direct actionists.
Out of a total of 17 activists awaiting trial for nonviolent direct action, 13 had been charged with ‘obstructing an enforcement officer engaged to execute a high court writ’. On 15 May, these charges were dropped, leaving the 13 charged only with ‘…
PN co-editor tummy-to-tummy with the forces of the State Photo: Marta Lefler
In the unlikely event that anyone were to ask where I was when I heard that Margaret Thatcher had died, I’ll be able to say that I was attempting to get into the department for transport (DfT) to search for secret documents.
Specifically, I was at their London HQ for ‘Operation Disclosure’: a two-day attempt by the anti-road group Combe Haven Defenders to find and distribute the DfT’s secret…
Combe Haven Defenders, the Hastings anti-roads group trying to stop the building of the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road (see PN 2554), have moved their focus from the actual site of the road-building (in East Sussex) to a demand for transparency from the department for transport (in London).
The DfT were forced by a freedom of information request to release their (unenthusiastic) recommendations on the Link Road, but the document was redacted, with sections blacked…
‘I think we may be about to get steamrollered.’
Fellow activist Emily Johns and I had just returned from a packed public meeting in Crowhurst, the small village northwest of Hastings that would be severely affected by the planned Bexhill-Hastings Link Road (BHLR). In the final evaluation the participants had been near-unanimous in saying how energised they felt by the meeting. One man even said that he’d never felt more optimistic about our prospects for stopping the road.
…
Zombie roads hungry for public money gather outside the office of Hastings MP Amber Rudd, 30 October. Photo: Milan Rai
On 30 October, campaigners against the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road (BHLR) staged a battle between ‘road busters’ and ‘zombie roads’ outside the office of Hastings MP Amber Rudd.
Combe Haven Defenders wanted to highlight her role – and that of the chancellor, George Osborne, to whom she is parliamentary private…
Fly and be Damned is nothing if not ambitious. It outlines what the author, Peter McManners, believes are measures which could usher in 'the third golden age of aviation'. An era where we could enjoy all the advantages flying brings without destroying the climate. He argues that the technology to make this possible could be developed if the aviation industry was incentivised to do so.
The key to facilitating change, McManners argues, is to make the necessary resources available to the…
For those who know the valley – and the smaller valleys that feed into it – you will already appreciate the peacefulness of the places, and a sense of remoteness that is utterly amazing considering that just over the hill is a population of 140,000 people.
You'll also know that the valley contains records of human habitation going back 4,000 years, with evidence of bronze age settlements, Roman pottery and Saxon trackways. The valley was certainly part of the theatre of…
At the end of September, a new local campaigning group calling itself 'Combe Haven Defenders' staged a weekend camp on the site of the proposed Bexhill-Hastings Link Road on England's South Coast. The temporary camp brought together 200 people with a shared concern for saving the valley and a willingness to explore the possibilities for action.
It also attracted a lot of media attention, including the Sunday…
Road building is back on the national agenda. Courtesy of the chancellor, George Osborne. It had been assumed that major new roads were a thing of the past, killed off by the 'anti-roads' protests of the 1990s. But, in an attempt to pull the country out of recession, the treasury has been looking to invest in infrastructure projects, including new roads.
The first major scheme to come on-stream could be the £100 million, 5.6 km Bexhill to Hastings Link Road. It would cut straight…
Oh dear, not another diatribe against the evil motor car! Obviously my letter in your February issue (PN 2542) had no effect.
Patrick Nicholson’s article (PN 2544) makes it sound as if all society’s woes are caused by cars (fine, if you ignore militarism, injustice, inequality, poverty and a few other evils).
There may be some harmful aspects in some people’s enthusiasm for Top Gear’s car worship. But…
Why do we accept the domination of private motor cars when we know they make no sense in the long term? How has our society become so entwined and dependent on car culture? What steps can we take to free ourselves from this deadly embrace?
The negative side of car culture is huge yet largely out of mind: obesity, lung disease, climate change, strip mining, three million lives…
Also in London, Bikes Alive, the cyclists’ direct action campaign, announced a ‘spring defensive’ to protect cyclists and pedestrians on the capital’s roads.
Cycling has become a major issue, partly because of a cycling safety campaign by The Times newspaper, begun after a Times reporter was nearly killed by a lorry while cycling in November.
As PN went to press, on 26 March, Bikes Alive were attempting once again to enforce a one-hour traffic go-slow (6pm-7pm) outside…
