The day of action against Kingsnorth took different forms: the Orange group negotiated with the police to take a route to the power station, suitable for kids and parents amongst others; the Green group went direct for the fences; the Blue group took to the water and the Silver group was airborne(ish).
>>>E.ON’s Defences Breached Following Olympic Efforts by Protesters<<<
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Saturday 09/08/08
Protesters Evade 26 Police Forces To Enter Power Station Site
The Climate Camp at Kingsnorth was celebrating today as protesters succeeded in breaching the perimeter fence and inner 10,000 volt electric fence to enter the power station site despite the best efforts of 26 police forces with over 1,500 police.
The day started early with a flotilla of boats – the Blue group – sailing towards Kingsnorth in the sun. Over twenty crafts made their way up the Medway to converge on the coal loading jetty. Three people occupied the ledge above the power station’s water inlet tunnel while a banner proclaiming ‘CO2AL: Starter Gun for Climate Chaos’ was hung from Darnet Fort on an island in the Medway directly opposite the power station.
Kent Police have been claiming that they had to rescue rafters from the Medway, but the participants have stated that the safety precautions they had taken were entirely sufficient and at no point were they in any danger. “Its a bit cheeky for the police to say that we had to be rescued when for starters we weren’t in any danger, and secondly, they were the ones who had confiscated our safety boat this morning,” said Rebel Rafter Harold Cryer. “The River Police were very professional and courteous, unlike their landlubbing equivalents.”
Meanwhile, around 1,000 people from the Orange group headed from the Camp directly to the main gates at Kingsnorth, led by a colourful carnival dragon made by children during the camp. At the gates the Camp’s Christian Cafe crew held a service giving the power station its last rites. The group blocked the main entrance even after a police helicopter circling above had demanded the marchers disperse.
The few hundred strong Green group made it to the perimeter fence of the power station. Some used a section of fencing to make a ladder to breach both the outer and the inner electric fence. Others climbed a nearby pylon to hang a banner reading ‘Shut Down Kingsnorth'(2).
Spokeswoman Emily Davies said, “It shows how serious we are about stopping climate change that people from all walks of life were prepared, despite blatantly intimidatory policing, to take direct action to disrupt E.ON. This Olympic effort certainly deserves a gold medal.”
Campers have been signing pledges to return to Kingsnorth if Minister for Business John Hutton gives E.ON the go-ahead to build the first coal-fired power station in the UK for 30 years. They promise to take action against E.ON and other companies until they abandon all such plans. Elsewhere in the country people are currently down in tunnels resisting eviction of a protest camp on the site of a proposed open-cast coal mine in Derbyshire.
“It’s been a great today, but a real victory for us will be when we have conclusively scuppered E.ON’s coal-fuelled mania. If Hutton gives the green light to this power plant, E.ON can expect to be seeing a lot more of us in the future,” said Ewa Steckel, who has signed one of the pledges to stop the plant.
Bizarrely, Malcolm Wicks, Energy Minister stated yesterday that we need Kingsnorth to counter catastrophic climate change. (1). Campers reacted furiously, “Malcolm Wicks’ claim that building an unabated coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth is necessary to save us from climate change shows him to be delusional and dangerously scientifically illiterate.” said camper Ania Kemp.
ENDS
Contacts:
07772 861 099 and 07932 096 677
(1) See interview in today’s Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/08/carboncapturestorage.fossilfuels
Q Patrick Wintour, Guardian: But why does the government not set a cut off point, such as 2020, by which time coal stations such as Kingsnorth would be shut if the clean coal technology was not in use?
A: Malcolm Wicks: “I think if we did that at the moment, when we do not know 100% that CCS is going to work, the engineering has not yet been tested and no one is fully aware of what the costs might be, then that would put an end to coal-fired power stations and demonstration plant and people would build gas again.”
(2) photos are available from www.indymedia.org.uk
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Orange:
Little video clip of orange march – video/avi 1.4M
Orange Block marches to Power Station. Arrives. Speeches. Police say go back. They march back to camp. Some people stay. They are all arrested.
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The Children’s Revolution joined together with the Orange march to Kingsnorth power station on the day of mass action and combined with the children of local residents to help form a huge blockade which attracted the attention of all the international news media.
The Children of the Eco Warriors marched alongside the Kingsnorth dragon created by Raga the well known Quaker peace activist, and they were led by Kristoff the clown and the Carbon Town Cryer band.
The march itself was fairly uneventful with a number of arrests – there were mounted police at the front of the march and a snatch squad grabbed (only just, he nearly got back into crowd) someone for rolling up the ‘POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS’ tape that was doing no good as we were in both lanes of the dual carriagewy, as the Orange group meeting agreed to do despite the Police insistence that the march, containing families and children, use one lane while lorries could zoom past in the fast lane. No way Jose!
At the power station banners were erected on the gates, and the police kept a watchful eye on the speakers using the Bicycology sound system microphone.
At one pm a police helicopter announced that the protest was over and that anyone who stayed in the vicinity would be arrested under section 14 of the Public Order Act.
Most of the climate campers drifted off back to the Camp for Climate Action but many stayed outside the power station gates and the Rhythms of Resistance samba band continued their drumming at the nearby roundabout.
Eventually the police started to push and shove a group of teenagers who had been part of the flotilla of little boats, and several police horses were also used to try to force them to move back to the camp site.
One young girl appeared to be snatched from behind by the police and the rest of the group were shouted at and bullied for about twenty minutes before the police finally gave up and left them alone.
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Green group:
There were several breaches of the perimeter fence. Activists used extra fencing that had been errected in advance of the protests as make shift ladders to scale the interior fence. Some also used them on the inner electric fence (the fence being turned off), with a small number of activists entering Kingsnorth itself.
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Silver group:
As part of the Silver Group actions, Pasty the CCS pig became airborne at around 11.03 for a short flight, but due to adverse weather conditions the CCS pig never flew far – boooooo!
Keep an eye out for future appearances 🙂
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Blue group:
Eco Hero Kayak Crew splash out on the Medway
A daring crew of 8 climate campers in inflatable kayaks kept police boats busy for 3 hours this morning heading towards Kingsnorth Power station on the Medway.
The fleet of 8 craft and 1 safety boat dropped into the water at around 9am this morning at a secret launch point near Rochester. They paddled towards Kingsnorth power station to join the protest against E-on and the building of the first new coal fired power station in 34 years. Their mobile craft allowed them to evade police capture for some time. The crew were picked up one by one by marine division officers finally ending up in a stand off on the Hoo mudflats close to the power station. All 8 kayakers were finally picked up at around 12.30pm, turned over to the Harbour Master and released without charge.
“The local papers say we’re crazy,” said one of the crew ” but what’s really crazy is that government and business are not seriously committed to combating climate change.”
All activist involved have signed a camp wide pledge to campaign to stop the building of the new power station.
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8.30am and RAF Search and Rescue is hovering overhead. Pirates are hiding in the bushes at Upnor beach, timbers a’shivering. Police believed they’d be constructing rafts at the camp, but the reality is they’d been built and buried in the woods two weeks before.
The helicopter flies off upstream, and crews pour out of the woods. The inflatables got off easily, the IKEAs (build it yourself rafts) had a little bit more trouble and two, sadly, were intercepted by police launches almost immediately.
Others got away fine though, and sailed happily down the Medway towards Kingsnorth.
One crew stopped off on the way at an old fort to make a banner drop “Coal – Starting Gun for Climate Chaos” before ploughing on against a falling tide and getting stuck in the mud.
Afterwards we met up with the Coastguard. They were very friendly and complimented the crews on their attention to safety. But they were scathing about police activity earlier in the week. “When we heard they’d raided the camp and seized life jackets our hearts dropped” they said. “It was irresponsible and could have put lives at risk”.
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On Saturday the 9th of august four activists using great skill and dexterity managed to gain access to the water inlet area of Kingsnorth power station and sat on a ledge above the water.
While the protesters sat calmly getting to know one another and making phone calls to the local press the riot police behind the razor wired fence began to cut holes using bolt croppers to allow climbing specialists rigged with all their equipment to come from either side surrounding the protesters. The police removed a large sign from behind and another hole was cut in order to allow the police to pull the peaceful protesters through to the other side of the fence where barking dogs and riot police awaited. All four protesters remained calm and decided to link arms with one another. As the police struggled to pull them free they held on tightly and managed to remain there whilst more police joined in the task of removing the peaceful static protesters using all the force and tactics they could. Eventually after much effort from the police one by one the protesters were removed, after being handcuffed and searched (again) they were put in to the back of a police van this was the first of many as they went through at least three different vehicle on the way to the station. Three of the protesters were released later on that night and the fourth was charged in the early hours of Sunday morning where she then found out that unbeknown to her e’on had instructed “the water inlet cooling system to be shut down” thus causing major disruption to the entire running of the plant. The fourth activist was remanded and after attending court on the monday morning she was granted bail.
Well done to everyone that took part weather in the action itself (green, blue, silver and orange groups) or in climate camp in general (food, workshops, setting up and securing the camp) your input has been greatly appreciated and this success would have not been possible without you, thank you.
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Pylon-action:
This morning, climate camp activists scaled high voltage transmission pylons carrying electricity from the power station. As some activists began to scale the pylons, others made phone calls to the relevant bodies. They have now ascended past barbed-wire anti-climb devices and have hung a banner reading ‘Shut down Kingsnorth’.
Jo, one of the climbers, said: “We weighed up the risks and researched this carefully before deciding on this peaceful action to shut down Kingsnorth today. The threat posed to our climate change targets by the Government’s proposed new generation of coal-fired power stations is so great that we are prepared to do this occupation to ensure Kingsnorth is shut for the day. Climate change, driven by carbon dinosaurs such as Kingsnorth, already kills 160,000 people a year, according to the World Health Organisation. It is utter madness to build new coal-burning plants when we need urgent and deep cuts in our carbon emissions”.
The protestors are set to remain for the rest of the day as other protests against Kingsnorth and E.ON coal expansion plans gather pace.
The protestors are from this year’s ‘Camp for climate action’ at Kingsnorth in Kent. The week-long camp has been holding workshops on climate change and show-casing practical low – or zero – carbon alternatives. At the same time, it has been building up to today: a day of action to shut down Kingsnorth.
E.ON, the German-owned energy company, plans to build the first of a new series of coal-burning plants in the UK. The company argues the plant will be ‘carbon capture ready’, But the overwhelming majority of experts agree the technology won’t be technically or economically viable for at least a decade, if ever. Should the technology not be proven as a viable option, there is currently no obligation on the utility to fit carbon capture technology at all. In other words, there’s a very strong chance we could end up with a standard coal plant belching out millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide for half a century to come.
The pylons are sited on the Hoo peninsular at post code DA12 3HU which can be reached by road and which has parking. OS grid reference is TQ 694 737
Jo, one of those occupying the pylons, can be reached on 07879283517
Another climate camp spokesperson at the scene: Richard 07956163272
Available for media interviews: James 07964618657
Photos available at AP and other outlets
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Update:
3 people, including the two climbers, were arrested around lunchtime under a section of PACE as the police were unable to verify their addresses (yeh, right). 4 hours later and the police have yet to confirm which police station they have been taken to.
This was one of the actions that have led to 1261 news articles generated by today’s actions, so far. Amazing, huge respect.