Focus E15 Occupy Police Station for Newham Present – Sunday tenth July 2016
It says one thing about Newham’s elected Mayor from 2012 to 2018 that the key public occasion within the borough was referred to as The Mayor’s Newham Present. It ought to in fact have been the Individuals’s Newham Present and even simply the Newham Present. However Newham was a monolithic Labour fiefdom, dominated by Sir Robin Wales, and the occasion, paid for by the individuals, was very a lot a PR train for the Mayor.
Housing motion group Focus E15 have been ejected from the Mayor’s Newham Present in 2014 after they approached the Mayor with protesting the borough’s housing insurance policies – and Robin Wales was discovered responsible of a breach of the code of conduct by Newham Requirements Committee.
The next yr the council ordered personal safety to cease campaigners handing out leaflets on the present and members of the Focus E15 marketing campaign have been very forcibly thrown to the bottom and evicted from the park in East Ham the place the present is held.
So in 2016, as a substitute of attempting to leaflet contained in the Newham Present, the Focus E15 Marketing campaign arrange a stall outdoors Newham City Corridor on Barking Highway near the park and spoke and handed out leaflets to individuals strolling to the present in Central Park. Their marketing campaign started after they confronted eviction from the Focus 15 hostel in central Stratford when Newham Council axed the grant and the council tried to disperse them to non-public rented properties in cities together with Liverpool and Manchester and to Wales.
They refused, demanding to be rehoused inside attain of households, pals and amenities they have been acquainted with, protesting the council’s coverage of social cleaning, although varied marches, excessive profile protests and occupations of empty council properties. Their marketing campaign, which included a weekly avenue stall on Stratford Broadway widened from being a private marketing campaign right into a ‘Housing for All’ marketing campaign in opposition to Newham and different councils who’re failing of their responsibility to supply housing for extraordinary individuals throughout London.
Focus E15 proceed to talk out and defend tenants from evictions and get appropriate rehousing for these made homeless in Newham, whereas persevering with to assault the council’s failure to supply sufficient housing in Newham for long-term residents whereas tons of of council houses have been empty for over ten years and the council encourages the constructing of big areas of luxurious flats for abroad buyers and wealthy newcomers.
Among the many many empty properties in Newham was the previous police station on the nook of Barking Highway reverse the City Corridor on Excessive Road South resulting in Central Park. After an hour or so of campaigning from the road stall they moved the brief distance to this and 4 individuals climbed onto the 2 balconies with banners whereas the others held a rally in entrance of the constructing.
Police got here to have a look at the protest, and tried to steer the 4 on the balconies to come back down, telling them they have been fearful that these have been unsafe. There was nothing to counsel there was any threat in any respect because the constructing was nonetheless in good situation regardless of being unused. Police who need photographers to maneuver additionally all the time deceive us and inform us that it’s for our security – and it virtually by no means is, and typically really outcomes us transferring into higher hazard.
Virtually definitely the individuals on the balconies have been secure for the subsequent twenty years or extra – or till the constructing was demolished, and after they advised police they might come down in a short while when the rally ended, the police gave up the pretence and easily watched from the other aspect of the highway.
Assist for the Focus E15 protest got here from the Revolutionary Communist Group, Feminist Library, Boleyn Dev 100, Tower Hamlets Renters and Newham Inexperienced Get together. Among the many audio system on the rally was a girl from East Finish Sisters Uncut who talked about their occupation of an empty property in Hackney as a group useful resource in protest in opposition to Hackney Council’s housing failures.
In 2015 Newham despatched 244 households households out of London, claiming it had no house or cash to deal with them right here. The borough then had the most important variety of empty properties of any London borough – round 1,318 with a complete worth of round £470 million. Though Sir Robin Wales has now been changed as Mayor, Newham’s housing insurance policies are nonetheless failing the individuals, and the police station, final in use round 8 years in the past, continues to be empty and firmly sealed in opposition to occupation. The Focus E15 marketing campaign continues.
Extra at Focus E15 Occupy Police Station.
Tags: Balcony 4, Central Park, East Ham, East Ham City Corridor, Focus E15, Focus E15 Marketing campaign, Focus E15 Mums, Housing for All, Labour, Labour COuncil, London, Mayor’s Newham Present, Newham Council, Newham Mayor, Newham Present, Newham City Corridor, peter Marshall, police, police station, protest, Sir Robin Wales
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