Tag: Cardiff

Cut the Carbon March – 2007

Cut the Carbon March: Tuesday 2nd October 2007 saw the final stage of Christian Aid’s Cut the Carbon March of a thousand miles by marchers from around the world as well as the UK which had begun 80 days earlier in Northern Ireland. The march aimed to increase awareness of the growing danger of global heating with world temperatures increasing as we continue to put greenhouse gases into the air by burning fossil fuels, and to prompt the New Labour government led by George Brown into decisive action to end fossil fuel use. Among those who took part in 2007 were groups from countries already suffering from the effects of climate change.

Unfortunately although it did something to increase awareness it led to little real action and now when we in the UK are beginning to feel the heat we have a Labour government which is likely to approve the production of natural gas from the Jackdaw North Sea field and oil from Rosebank north-west of the Shetlands.

Here from My London Diary is my 2007 account of the Final Mile of the Christian Aid march with a few of the pictures – you can see more at christian aid cut the carbon march – final mile.

Christian Aid – Cut the Carbon March – The Final Mile

City Hall to St Paul’s Cathedral

The final mile took marchers from a rally at City Hall to St Paul’s Cathedral – the end of their 1000 mile walk

Around a thousand supporters turned up on a dull damp Tuesday morning to accompany the Christian Aid ‘Cut The Carbon’ marchers on the final mile of a walk that had started in Bangor, Northern Ireland, then took them a thousand miles via Edinburgh, Newcastle On Tyne, Leeds, Birmingham, Cardiff, Bournemouth (for a meeting with George Brown at the Labour Party conference) and on to London (including a picnic at Battersea the previous Sunday.)

AA few of the international marchers had to go home before the end, but most, together with those from the UK, made it to the end, and spoke at the rally in the City Hall Scoop before the march set off.

The route led over London Bridge and then up past the Stock Exchange to St Paul’s Churchyard, where there were more speeches, particularly from a Muslim marcher, before a service in the cathedral.

As photography isn’t allowed at events inside St Paul’s (its one of the few places I’ve actually been thrown out of for trying to take pictures) I came home as people streamed inside. The marchers were due to meet with Hilary Benn afterwards to press the case for climate justice. [Benn was Secretary of State for International Development from 2003 until earlier in 2007 and was in October 2007 Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.]

Several speakers from this country and abroad had made the point that Britain lead the world in creating the problem when we began the industrial revolution and so should feel a great obligation to get things going to save the world from the disaster into which it is currently fast heading.

Protesters at St Paul’s Cathedral send a clear message to Hilary Benn and the government to Cut the Carbon

Other demonstrators at St Paul’s made the point that raising animals was an important factor in the high carbon footprint; growing and eating crops can be far less wasteful and polluting. [They pointed out that] Christian Aid’s development policies would be better directed to encouraging vegetarian and vegan production rather than the current reliance in some projects on raising animals for food.


Many more pictures at Christian aid cut the carbon march – final mile.

I was pleased that my exhibition of pictures of environmental protests at London as a part of Foto Arte in Brasilia in December 2007 was able to include the top picture in this post, showing the Brazilians from the Movimento Dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (Landless Workers’ Movement) leading the march with Tower Bridge in the background, and I think some from this group may have come to the talk on car culture I gave at the festival.

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Housing For Need Not Greed

Housing For Need Not Greed: Mostly my posts here look at old work, either from a few years ago or my work on London back in the 1980s and 90s. But I’m still goining out at taking pctures if not quite as often as I once did. So this post is about one of the two events I photographed last weekend.

Housing For Need Not Greed - Aysen Dennis - Fight4Aylesbur
Aysen Dennis – Fight4Aylesbury

Last Saturday, 8th July 2023 was National Housing Action Day, and a march from the Elephant to the Aylesbury Estate was one of 16 across the country on National Housing Day. Others were taking place in Lambeth, Islington, Kensington, Cardiff, Glasgow, Abbey Wood, Wandsworth, Harlow, Merton, Ealing, Cornwall, Folkestone, Devon, Birmingham, and Hastings.

Housing For Need Not Greed -Tanya Murat - Southwark Defend Council Housing
Tanya Murat – Southwark Defend Council Housing

The Southwark protest demanded Southwark Council stop demolishing council homes and refurbish and repopulate estates to house people and end the huge carbon footprint of demolish and rebuild. They demanded housing for need not corporate greed, refurbishment not demolition, filling of empty homes and an end to the leasehold system.

Housing For Need Not Greed
Marchers at the Elephant on their way to the Aylesbury Estate

Demolition and rebuilding of housing produces huge amounts of CO2, and whenever possible should be avoided now we are aware of the real dangers of global warming. Instead existing buildings should be insulated, retrofitted and refurbished and properly maintained.

Housing For Need Not Greed

Southwark Council’s estates have for well over 20 years been deliberately run down and demonised with some being demolished and replaced. Around 1000 council homes on the Aylesbury Estate have already been demolished buy around 1,700 are still occupied but currently scheduled for demolition.

Marchers on Walworth Road on their way to the Aylesbury Estate.

These homes were well built for the time to higher standards than their replacement and could easily and relatively cheaply be brought up to modern levels of services and insulation with at least another 50 years of life. The estate was carefully designed with open spaces, natural daylight and a range of properties, many with some private outdoor space. The planned replacements are at higher density, less spacious and unlikely to last as long – and only include a small proportion at social rents. Current tenants are more secure and the properties are far more affordable.

People on the street watch and video the march

Many of those whose homes have already been demolished here and on the neighbouring Heygate estate have been forced to move outside the area, some far from London as they can no longer afford to live here.

Bubbles and Marchers on Walworth Road on their way to the Aylesbury Estate.

Although the developers have profited greatly from their work with Southwark Council here and in other estates, and some officers and councillors involved have personally landed well-paying corporate jobs and enjoyed lavish corporate hospitality, the schemes have largely been financial disasters for the council and council tax payers.

Fight4Aylesbury was formed in 199 as Aylesbury Tenants and Residents First, and has been fighting Southwark Council’s plans to demolish the estate since then. While these schemes – part of New Labour’s regeneration initiative – have always been destructive of local communities and disastrous for many of those whose homes have been demolished, we now see that they are also environmentally unsupportable.

You can watch a video on YouTube of Aysen Dennis, Fight4Aylesbury and Tanya Murat, Southwark Defend Council Housing talking about the protest, and FIght4Aylesbury recently released a newsletter, The Future of the Aylesbury with more details on the estate and their proposals. A few more of my pictures from the event are in the album Housing For Need Not Greed – National Action Day, London, UK and are available for editorial use on Alamy.