At around around 8pm, approx 150 new people arrived at the site and refused to be searched. They just walked past police and came on site. They told officers that they had no legal grounds to inconvenince them by making them wait to be searched. There was an awsome ceilidh in the main marquee with perhaps 400 people this evening. The radio has been running really sucessfully with so many people up for taking part that the shows have been much longer than expected.

The power shortage today resulted in a meeting of various power providers who have since been matched up their partial kit to form complete solutions. Those who managed to get solar in but not their batteries are working with those who got in batteries but not their wind turbines. Those with wind turbines who had their towers stolen have been teaming up with those who have towers but incomplete turbine. There have been several hundred new people today. Estimated numbers on site are now over 1,200, perhaps even 1,400.

22:00
Bike thieves caught on film

21:00
Workshops packed, with climate science by Dr Simon Lewis, and mass action training in amongst the over-flying helicopter. By evening, lots of people arriving. Two-hour wait to get 'stop-and-searched' proves too much, and 100 people refuse and head straight to camp!

15:55
Police issued demands this morning that they can have a mobile police station on-site, can patrol the site, and can search for items they have lost - eg a CS gas canister and a baton. They forgot to mention a book. Police also started confiscating wheelie bins, which are being used to carry stuff from half a mile down the road which is nearest to where vehicles are being allowed. They suspect the wheelie bins are stolen. However, current correspondence going on with Lewisham Council might prove otherwise. They de-comissioned the wrong size wheelie bins, stopped using them, and gave them to the climate camp last year. Lots of workshops going on, power a big problem today, infrastructure wise lots of work going on. Whilst the big alternative energy providers are on the site, some stuff is still missing e.g. big battery banks and towers for wind generators not allowed on site and having to make cables as they've taken them.

Other than that, everyone is chilled and happy, properly settled in, people getting down to it, meetings, workshops, everyone seems pretty happy about the fact the police have not managed to put a dampener on this and everyone feels great that the police are off the site. There is a steady stream of mainstream media visiting the camp. Police helicopter flying overhead earlier on in the day, creating noise flying low for no particular reason. It is estimated up to 800 people are now at the camp although this is difficult to tell as the site is huge and you can't see it all from one place!

13:14
Update from the legal team: 16 arrests so far, 8 people are still in custody, 7 will appear before magistrates court today. Most arrests have been for obstruction, and are related to police activity at back gate, in the early morning raid on 4th August. A couple of people have been arrested for breaking bail conditions.

The legal team are continuing to look for people who are willing to be trained up as legal observers. Trainings take place at 4.30, every afternoon. More basic 'know your rights' workshops also take place around the week. Please visit the legal tent for more info.

12:00
(from CC website - "The Camp for Climate Action condems in the strongest possible terms the police press release issued 20 minutes ago as a totally irresponsibe stunt to deter people coming to the Camp for Climate Action. To link a 'stash' of knives allegedly found somewhere in the Hoo Peninsula to the Camp for Climate Action is nothing but a smear campaign against us. To suggest that the campers - environmentalists living at a camp serving only vegan food - would even consider hurting a police horse shows the police's press release to be nothing but policial policing," said Ester Davies at the camp when we heard the 'news'. "We have asked Bob Marshall-Andrews MP, Colin Challon MP, Caroline Lucas MEP and Chris Davies MEP, who have already sent a letter to Gary Beautridge to complain about his policing of the event, to investigate this bizzare claim of the police".

Campers condem smear by police. "Last year it was bombs at Heathrow, this year it is knives in a wood, every year it's something, and always, always these crazy stories turn out to be untrue." said Paul Sumburn at the Camp. We remind everyone that somebody (police?, BAA?) started a similar smear campaign against us last year at Heathrow, reported by the Evening Standard, who we persued through the Press Complaints Commission and won our case. We will vigourously persue any unsubstantiated claims against the camp. We welcome critical reporting. But outright lies must challenged.

10:00
(from CC website - All quiet on the western front (also known as 'gate 5'). A good calm nights sleep for all, workshops programme on schedule, with mass action planning, discussion on agrofuels, off-grid renewable energy and Marx's views on ecology, to name four things happening now. Finishing touches to the site in full swing, with a cinema, bakery and computer suite open today. Yet, at 8 am this morning the police rejected outright yesterday evenings camp offer of a patrol of two police officers once an hour. So the police are still being weird. Apart from that all is cool.

From yesterday, the bail-breakers all got in bar one, who is in court today. We'll bring news as we have it, but lots of people have gone to support him in Chatam court. Arthur Scargil talked (for hours!) on the problems of building a new coal-fired powerstation at Kingsnorth which used no UK coal and is not planned to be fitted with technology to bury the carbon emission under the sea (known as carbon capture and storage CCS). He put forward a strong proposal that with CCS there was a role for deep-mined coal from the UK. Discussions on the importance of unions in solving climate change continued in the evening plenary on 'capitalism and climate change'. Important stuff.

09:43
Things are good and calm at the camp and according to some campers it feels "like we might get into a routine". Listen to short audio from this morning (approx 1 min).