The Yorkshire Anarchist Group (YAG) was created partly to bring together divergent groups and individuals who are scattered throughout Yorkshire’s ridings in the hope that we can work more efficiently by presenting a united front, but also to provide an umbrella for people and groups in the smaller towns that make up a significant proportion of our region’s demographic profile. All too often important struggles and campaigns go unsupported because attention is focused on a few key cities. This is not intended as a criticism of the people who are doing some amazing things in those cities, but we could have a few more ’successes’ under our belts if we sometimes lend a hand to our less fortunate neighbours – a kind of ‘mutual aid’ for activists.

YAG is not seen as an alternative to the strategies and initiatives that currently exist in Yorkshire, rather it is an attempt to bring together diverse (and dispersed…) talents and resources to strengthen and expand upon what already exists. To this end we intend to hold meetings across the region and in the new year we will be producing a Yorkshire-wide newsletter

We’re bunched together eating a delicious home-made apple pie surrounded by some of the most cutting edge sustainable technology anywhere in Europe. The apples are windfalls which, if the local Doncaster bureaucrats had their way, would be left to rot along with the millions of pounds worth of incredible buildings and technology which make up the now abandoned ‘Earth Centre’.

Originally conceived in 1989 as a response to the World Commission on Environment and Development’s call for ‘vast campaigns of education, debate and public participation’ concerning sustainable development, the Earth Centre began to take shape on the site of the old Denaby Main/Cadeby collieries during the 1990s. Initially there was immense local interest and a lot of people from nearby Conisbrough and Denaby were building their own small-scale projects on the site – at one time we thought that we might have our very own Centre for Alternative Technology. Unfortunately – as the money started to roll in – the idea behind the Earth Centre went from ‘an exhibition of sustainable development practices and an international centre for related research and education’ to being a rather crappy theme park.

Following what the Guardian called “a roller coaster ride of false starts, wild hopes and dashed plans.” (and what locals called “cock ups”) the Earth Centre closed it’s doors for the last time in 2004.This wasn’t a surprise for Doncaster residents. The Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council (DMBC) is like any other bureaucracy; when your give a bunch of people a large sum of other people’s money and allow them to spend it without any form of accountability the inevitable consequence is RMS – Reverse Midas Syndrome. In other words everything they touch turns to shit! The bureaucrats milked the scheme for all it was worth and then abandoned it, even though visitor numbers were increasing throughout the last year that it was open.


The site is presently being used by a wargames company (ex-military teaching corporate types how to be ‘real men’) and as a film set for ITV’s post apocalypse TV series, ‘Survivors’. Not ideal uses for a facility which has ultra-quiet wind turbines, a solar canopy, advanced ‘living machine’ biological sanitation and water purification systems, immense underground galleries, extensive allotments, forest gardens and fishing lakes, and a dormitory to sleep over 100 people.

But back to the apple pie – did I mention that it was delicious?

While chatting we realised that we were quite a diverse bunch (more of that in moment) and that saving the Earth Centre is an important project for anarchists of every persuasion. There are the obvious environmental connotations surrounding one of the most ecologically sustainable developments in the world. But this is also a real opportunity to create a social centre, an experimental community based project and a sustainable ecological commune in the heart of one of England’s most economically deprived regions. Like most of Doncaster’s ex-mining towns the local community has been decimated; first by the miner’s strike and then by the subsequent pit closures and years of economic decline – here of course they had the added pressure of being shafted by the bureaucrats who were responsible for killing off the Earth Centre project. The Pixies who set Reclaim the Earth Centre! in motion have worked closely with the residents of Conisbrough and Denaby and have received almost 100% support locally; the only negative response was from a guy who said ‘it was a nice idea, but it would never happen’ – it’s up to you to prove him wrong!

The Earth Centre is next to Conisbrough train station which is on a direct rail line between Doncaster and Sheffield; it’s easily accessible for anarchists (and anyone else…) from all over Yorkshire (and beyond). Being an ex-industrial site its easy to reach by road too – if you’re into that kind of thing ;-) . The group meets at 1:30pm every Sunday – come along and get a free welcome hug!

As I’ve already mentioned we pie-eaters were a diverse bunch; there were eco types, class war types, syndicalist types, anarchism-without-anachronisms types, a social-lifestylist (me) and even a bloke that managed to stop a police charge during the Wapping dispute armed only with a big bag of marbles! But one problem we all shared is that we were from areas of Yorkshire – smaller towns and less politically active cities – which lacked organisation and numbers. The conversation – somewhat mumbled thanks to mouthfuls of pie – quickly turned to the need for a Yorkshire anarchist support network, and so the Yorkshire Anarchist Group (YAG) was born. We decided to hit the ground running and build this blog as our first project. Over the next few days we’ll be trying to contact as many Yorkshire anarchist groups and individuals as possible (if you contact us it would be even better for our workload) and in the coming months we will be working on newsletters, pooling resources and planning a launch party for sometime in 2010. Please let us know if you can help in any way