St Agnes Place Eviction
30.11.2005 00:00 | Free Spaces | Social Struggles | London
The eviction of St Agnes Place in Kennington (South London) by Lambeth Council finally took place on Tuesday 29th, after years of court battles and previous eviction attempts [Report]. The oldest squatted street in London was swarmed with hundreds of riot police the whole day, as residents were resisting the bailiffs and specialist climbers that were emptying the street of its 150 strong community set up 30 years ago [Photos 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 and Video]. Throughout the day there were reports of police stopping people on their way to show support to St Agnes Place residents outside Oval, Kennington, Stockwell and Brixton tubes. Later in the evening there was a demonstration outside Lambeth Town Hall in Brixton to celebrate St Agnes Place community, as well as to show support to the people that has become homeless as a result of the eviction [Photos 1 and 2].
By mid-afternoon there were still three houses resisting the eviction, as residents and supporters pledged to hold for as long as they could. But later in the evening, reports came in that the last resisting squatter had been removed from the remaining occupied house in an ambulance, as the eviction was brutally completed [Video]. He was taken to hospital after he was badly beaten on the head with truncheons. Click here for St Agnes place map and location.
Latest info and Timeline of Events
Netcast from Wireless FM live here - a free radio that has been broadcasting from number 81 in St. Agnes Place for the last two years.
More info on St Agnes Place from the Indymedia archives.
Unwelcome visitors.
Latest from stagnesplace.net:
Thursday 1st December
00:40: An update on the proceedings on the street - Today people were given strictly supervised access to their ex homes to collect what they could carry of their personal belongings. However one person whilst being escorted by security to the house, happened to mention that he personally felt that the eviction was unlawful. He was immediately deemed high risk and was refused access and escorted back to the cordon.
Then a long time elderly resident, who had been giving a short interview to Channel 4 journalists was collected by the security guards to fetch what he could carry. Unfortunately the Channel 4 people had not had time to remove the microphone they had pinned on him, although of course it was disconnected. When he reached the doorway of his ex home a policeman spotted the mic and pulled him over for intense questioning. The police then confiscated the microphone and removed the gentleman from the area minus any posessions.
Wednesday 30th November
6:00 pm Illegal eviction has now taken place of last house on Bolton Crescent south end of St Agnes Place. Residents here have been thrown out onto the freezing street with nowhere to go, even though their hearing for posession of the property was not scheduled until mid december. This is a totally illegal action by baliffs and police and will of course face a legal challenge. It seems that British law is not recognised by the tyrants that have ordered the actions of the last two days. Only one house now stands in the way of the bulldozer.
4:39 pm: There is going to be an illegal eviction happening to the couple that live at the south end of St Agnes Place (Bolton Crescent) at 5pm....they have not had their case heard in court yet, that is due on 16th December. They have nowhere to go and have 2 cats with 3 baby kittens They are appealing for people to come as witnesses to this illegal eviction and also desperately appealing for emergency accomodation. Measures are being taken to try and stop this illegal act but we are running out of time. PLEASE PLEASE help if you can.... offer temporary shelter or get up there and give support and witness/photograph/film/gather evidence. Obviously these people are distraught and need our help NOW.
12:20 am: Netcasting radio station Wireless Fm continues to live stream through the night while pixies continue with there magik, tune into it by pasteing the following link into your real player: http://wirelessfm.net/ram/wirelessfm.ram
Tuesday 29th November
10:50 pm: No 66 resident now concious, he is being patched up and is expected to be released from hospital where he will most certainly be transported to Brixton police station for further grilling. Heavy demolition machinery has still yet to arrive on the street.
9:15 pm: It seems that contravening any rights of the residents left on the street, the remaining people have now been pulled out in the most violent way. The resident from number 66 has been badly beaten on the head by many many blows with truncheons, he is in an ambulance right now and is in a extremely serious condition. We are attempting to get more information, will update as soon as possible.
Homepage:
http://www.stagnesplace.net/
Additions
St.Agnes Dis-Placed
29.11.2005 22:07
Neighbours expressed their sense of loss of what surely was a vibrant and cultral influence within its community. St.Agnes place over the years has been a home to families, a safe haven to the the occassional homeless and many passing travellers to form one of Britain's most distinctive communities that had established themselves as a positive part of the wider community. Also host to Europes only Rasta Fari head-quarters, St.Agnes Place and Kennington play area are now due to be demolished in a £16m deal with London Quadrant Housing who want to buy the land. Redevolpment plans are overshadowed by concerns of scandel involving councillor Keith Finchett, who after prevously branding the occupents of St.Agnes Place as "parasites" is now at the centre of a Council Housing fraud scandal, which has recently cost £2.8m of taxpayer’s money. Police fear this money may never be recovered and Fitchett may be forced to resign as a result.
WAKE FOR ST AGNES PLACE? I didnt see many people down at Brixton town hall today!
Who remembers the "Fight The Power" benefit gig for St.Agnes? Where are you all now?
Solidarity party @ Speakers Corner JAMM 261 Brixton Rd. This Thursday 1st Dec \ Spoken word \ Hip-Hop \ full live bands all night \ free entry all night \ all in the name of protest \
Photography from the St.Agnes Place eviction will be screened throughout the night on 3 large projectors at this event.
http://stagnesplace.net/index.php br /> http://www.speakerscornerlive.com/
speakerscorner
e-mail:
snuff@speakerscornerlive.com
Homepage:
http://www.speakerscornerlive.com
St Agnes - the morning after
30.11.2005 12:12
http://www.flickr.com/photos/londonreporter/sets/1479931/
london reporter
more info on squatting laws
02.12.2005 09:50
squirrello
Comments
Hide the following 9 comments
NOT IN MY NAME
29.11.2005 23:26
I only heard about St.Agnes a few weeks ago. I do not live in Lambeth but I work there and I plan to move there.
This is a disgrace.
It is one part of a much bigger story.
That story is as important as the story of the enclosures of common land in the 16th century, which brought rural depopulation and was seen as the biggest problem of the age.
The enclosures of our times are marketed to us as 'development'. This style of top-down 'development', enforced by the truncheon, is simply a mechanism for making the rich richer and damning the poorer people in our land.
This is not the reason why I pay taxes to fund a police force. At a time when the Metropolitan Police has a lot of questions to answer to Lambeth residents regarding the horrific shooting of de Menezes, it is a deeply unimpressive use of OUR MONEY. We are not to be bullied by the police. We are shareholders in the police force, and we must make our voice heard when we disagree with their use of their force.
WE HAVE TO JOIN TOGETHER TO FIGHT EACH INCIDENCE OF THIS BULLYING BECAUSE IT IS HAPPENING TO LOCAL COMMUNITIES ALL ACROSS THE LAND.
NO SOCIAL CENTRE IS AN ISLAND. AND NO INCIDENCE OF SELFISH CORPORATE 'DEVELOPMENT' (i.e.ENCLOSURE) IS AN ISLAND.
Solidarity with everyone at St.Agnes!
Matthew Edwards
e-mail:
matthewedwards999@yahoo.co.uk
St Agnes Place Eviction
30.11.2005 11:58
YET AGAIN, ABUSE OF POWERS BY THE POLICE WITH THEIR BRUTAL ACTIONS!!
YET AGAIN, ITS PAINFULLY OBVIOUS THAT THE POWERS THAT BE VIEW THEMSELVES AS SUPERIOR BEINGS, LEAVING THE GENERAL PUBLIC(whom pay's their wages and are the majority)WITH NO OPINION WHATSOEVER(unless via and in agreement with the dispicable Sun paper)!!
EACH AND EVERYONE OF US SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF OUR CORPOPRATE GOVERNMENT, AND THEIR ABUSE OF POSITION, WE VOTE THEM IN FOR OUR BENEFIT, THE PEOPLES BENEFIT AND YET AGAIN THEIR ARROGANCE OUT SHINES THEIR COMMITMENT TO THE PEOPLE OR THIS COUNTRY BUT MORE SO TO THEIR POCKETS AND POWER HUNGRY EGO'S!!!
LIFE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN MONEY!!!!
Sonia
Ownership?
30.11.2005 17:24
Me
masked cops everywhere in Europe now?
01.12.2005 14:47
anti-KGB
Robin Hoody versus the Sheriff of Rottingham
01.12.2005 20:40
Not all of the laws in this country can favour the robbing of the poor to feed the rich, can they?
Robin Hoody
ASS say...
02.12.2005 08:24
"Lambeth Council cite the lost rental income from properties on the
street over 30 years, which is a half-truth since Lambeth waved away
it's rights to rental income when they abandoned these properties
(infact, squatters over the years have neglected to get their shit
together and attain ownership of properties on the street under the
old 12-year rule)."
Me
Where are the human rights?
03.12.2005 14:50
About 100 people including sicks, pregnants and children were forced to become homeless in wintertime with a bird flu threat.
well, nowadays we know about nineteenth century dictators by the media. But, do you know about what happend in the colonialist era? Let me tell you that the German dictator A. Hitler was inspired by the British colonialists to build his "reich". When the British colonized North America, a few centuries ago; rapes and genocides were commited by Anglo-Saxons in the local indian communities. They were defending their race superiority.
Today those feelings of cruelity still be found. A good exemple of it , is the st.Agnes place squatted street eviction. 2oo policeman (some of them having a cup of tea with a smile in the face) forced iligaly those residents to leave their homes. And a 30 years old community with solid roots was destroyed by the Lambeth council.
This is an obvious human rights agression and one more time we must be councious about it.
Just like when the actual US president George W. Bush attacked Irac with the excuse of a massive destruction weapons threat... well now we know that he did it for petrol. This same system, used for centuries by dictators was used now by the Lambeth council. They used the false excuse of criminality in the streets of st.Agnes place to go on with the operation and evict them agressively, using opression and violence; in a community where peace was predominant for years and years.
As we see money is a strong way of blindness and Lambeth council does it well.
Before this demolition order, it would have been relatively cheap to repair and support the community to develop its positive atributes. But that is the whole threat to a dictatorship. Is people being abble to stand on their own two feet, help themselves and keep their own culture alive?
Unfairblair
Where next for this campaign?
05.12.2005 22:34
Matthew Edwards
e-mail:
matthewedwards999@yahoo.co.uk
Struggle for St Agnes is still Continuing
13.12.2005 17:25
M