homeless | >Re-PHOTO

Anti-Homeless Spikes & No More Austerity – 2014

Anti-Homeless Spikes & No More Austerity: On Saturday 21st June 2014 I photographed a small protest against anti-homeless spikes outside the Tesco Metro on Lower Regent Street on my way to a much larger protest against austerity meeting at the BBC in Portland Place and marching to a rally in Parliament Square.

Call for Nationwide Homeless Spikes Ban

Public disquiet was mounting against the increasing use of anti-homeless spikes on and around buildings, metal or concrete spikes used to make pavements, ledges and other horizontal surface impossible or very uncomfortable for people to lie down or sometimes even sit on, aimed in particular at stopping homeless people sleeping there.

These spikes and other ‘hostile measures’ are increasingly used to force homeless people out of public spaces – you can read more about it in a 2016 article on the Crisis web site as well as in various newspaper reports. ‘Defensive Architecture’ continues and you can read about a 2024 campaign against spikes by artist Stuart Semple and creative agency TBWA\MCR in Big Issue.

Call for Nationwide Homeless Spikes Ban

No More Austerity – Demand The Alternative

There was huge support for the march and rally by The People’s Assembly, trade unions and campaign groups calling for an end to austerity which gathered outside the BBC to march to a rally in Parliament Square.

Clearly the government cuts since 2010 were causing huge problems across the nation and were stifling economic growth. And while we were still wasting huge amounts on senseless projects such as Trident nuclear missiles, public services were being cut, public sector workers were getting cuts in pay through below inflation increases. Education was suffering, the NHS was being increasingly privatised and generally the interests of the majority were being sacrificed while the wealthy were getting even richer.

Measure such as 2012 bedroom tax and later the two child benefit cap brought in in 2017 plunged many of the poorest even deeper into poverty and there were continued attacks on disability benefits.

I put almost all of the pictures from the march on-line without captions with a promise to add them later but – as so often – later never came. But I think most of the pictures tell their own story,

Among them are a number of pictures of Class War – some of them carrying a banner which later became their manifesto for the 2015 general election – for which they became a political party and stood a handful of candidates – who each only received a handful of votes. But perhaps ‘DOUBLE DOLE – NO BEDROOM TAX – DOUBLE PENSIONS’ was never likely to be an entirely convincing alternative.

In 2017 we did have a real alternative and the Labour vote was up by 9.5% and it was only a deliberate and deceitful campaign by the party right who were in control of the party mechanism diverting resources from key marginals that stopped a Corbyn victory. They out-manoeuvred the left again in 2019 both to ensure defeat and for the key architect of the disastrous policy that lost them the vote as minister for Brexit to become party leader.

But people in 2024 still wanted change, and voted against the hopeless and hapless Tories who had blustered under Boris, wilted faster than lettuce under Truss and submerged under Sunak. But what we got was not chage but Tory-lite, even resurrecting the tired skeletons of Blair and Mandelson. It now seems more than likely that at the next election we may get change – but for the even worse.

I won’t bother to put any of the pictures of speakers at the rally on-line, though I photographed a long list of them – all on My London Diary.

Parliament Square was pretty full and people were still arriving at the square long after I made a picture of the crowd at the start of the rally.

More pictures:
People’s Assembly Rally
No more Austerity – demand the alternative

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Cat Meat, Teen Votes, Venezuela, Newham Nag & Monsanto – 2017

Cat Meat, Teen Votes, Venezuela, Newham Nag & Monsanto: My day on Saturday 20th May included a very wide range of protests, beginning in Trafalgar Square with protests calling for an end to the killing of dogs and cats for their fur and meat as well as a protest demanding for votes in all UK elections at 16.

From there I went to a protest outside the offices of The Guardian newspaper against their biased reporting on political events in Venezuela – opposed by a handful of Venezuelans who called President Maduro a murderer.

Housing campaigners Focus E15 were outside Stratford Station handing out copies of ‘The Newham Nag’, based on Newham Council’s information sheet but condemning the council for their financial mismanagement and failure to address housing problems in the borough.

Finally at the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square March Against Monsanto were holding a rally, part of an international grassroots movement and protest supported by Bee Against Monsanto.

More details of all these and more pictures on My London Diary at the links to them below.

End dog and cat meat trade – Trafalgar Square

Cat Meat, Teen Votes, Venezuela, Newham Nag & Monsanto - 2017

Apparently it was ‘Fight Dog Meat Kindness and Compassion Day‘ and there were protests across the world calling for laws to protect animals, especially dogs and cats, who are cruelly killed for their fur and to be eaten.

Cat Meat, Teen Votes, Venezuela, Newham Nag & Monsanto - 201

More pictures End dog and cat meat trade.

Teen Voice says votes at 16 – Trafalgar Square

Teen Voice, who last year protested over 16-18 year olds having no say in the Brexit vote, came to Trafalgar Square to call for votes in all UK elections at 16. Had young people been given a vote we would almost certainly have voted to remain in Europe.

They say it is unfair that while they can work, pay taxes and even join the armed forces they have no say in votes which effect their future to an arguably greater extent than anyone who is allowed to vote in elections at the moment.

There were a few short speeches before I had to leave but the group were still waiting for other teenagers to join them. Probably holding a protest early on a Saturday morning was not the best idea.

More at Teen Voice says votes at 16.

End Media Lies Against Venezuela – The Guardian

People protested outside The Guardian in London calling for an end to the lies and censorship of the UK press about the events in Venezuela.

They say that the current unrest is a right-wing coup attempt to overthrow President Maduro and the working class Bolivarian revolution, backed by the US, which the privately-owned Venezuelan press misrepresents as ‘pro-democracy’ protests and fails to report their attacks on hospitals, schools and socialist cities which have led to many deaths.

More on My London Diary at End media lies against Venezuela

Focus E15 launch The Newham Nag – Stratford Station

*The protesters had to keep telling people their ‘Nag’ wasn’t from the council and so was worth reading*

Housing campaigners Focus E15 launched their latest handout, ‘The Newham Nag’, based on Newham Council’s information sheet, handing it out outside Newham Station.

Police came and harassed them and Newham Council staff handed out a fixed penalty notice of £100 for alleged obstruction of the highway in the very wide public pedestrian open space in front of the station.

Newham’s use of risky and expensive long-term loans had resulted in 80% of the income from Newham’s council taxpayers going directly to the banks as interest payments. And one in 27 Newham residents are homeless – the largest proportion in any local authority in England. They say the council led by Mayor Robin Wales has failed in its duty to provide housing for residents.

More at Focus E15 launch The Newham Nag,

March Against Monsanto – US Embassy, Grosvenor Square

he March Against Monsanto protest outside the US Embassy was a part of the international grassroots movement and protest supported by Bee Against Monsanto.

Speakers addressed various issues around the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), Roundup, a glyphosphate herbicide, dangerous bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides, and the need for improved protection victims of multinational corporations.

Campiagner Linda Kaucher speaks about the danger of trade deals such as TTIP which override national laws which protect our health and safety and endanger the integrity of our food supplies.

March Against Monsanto

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March For Homes – 2015

March For Homes: St Leonard’s Church to City Hall

Defend Council Housing, South London People’s Assembly and Unite Housing Workers Branch had called for a march to draw attention to the crisis in housing, particularly in London where council housing lists are huge and many councils are failing to meet their legal requirements to rehouse homeless families.

These requirements generally do not extend to single homeless people and in London alone over 6,500 people had slept rough at some time in the previous year with around one in twelve of 16-24 year-olds having been homeless at some point. Government figures comprehensively and deliberately underestimate the numbers.

It isn’t really a housing crisis, but a crisis of affordable housing. There are more than enough empty properties to house the homeless, but those who need housing are unable to afford the high rents or house prices being asked.

There has been a huge surge in building high-rise properties in London, with whole areas like Battersea and Nine Elms as well as elsewhere across inner and outer London being increasingly filled with them, but almost all are high-price properties, many sold overseas before the buildings are completed not as homes but as investments. Others are low specification student housing and also do nothing for the housing crisis.

What is needed is a crash programme of housing at social rents for family units of all sizes. Developers have become adept at evading what laws there are about providing social housing in new developments, fiddling the books to claim they cannot make sufficient profits which ridiculously lets them off the hook.

Much of the UK problems over housing go back to the Thatcher administration which both sold off council housing piecemeal under ‘right to buy’ but also stopped councils replacing what they had lost.

In earlier years both Tory and Labour councils had built generally high quality low cost housing though of course there were some examples of poor planning (often when councils were forced to cut costs) and shoddy work as well as unfortunate government encouragement of high-rise system building, which many of us were campaigning against in the 60’s and 70s.

But perhaps even more importantly under Tory administrations council housing became something just for what they regarded as ‘feckless’ and the ‘dregs of society’, those unable to fend for themselves. We got this ridiculous concept of the ‘housing ladder’ and very much it is a ladder that expresses “pull up the ladder, Jack. We’re alright“.

Municipal housing can provide housing for all at low cost and provided a rational approaching to providing decent housing for all, getting away from the poor conditions and high cost of private rented housing at much lower cost than owner occupation.

The March for Homes on Saturday 31st January was actually two marches, one from the Elephant in South London and the other from East London which I photographed at Shoreditch, calling for more social housing and an end to estate demolition and evictions. On My London Diary at March for Homes: Shoreditch Rally I published a very long list of some of the various groups which supported the march, as well as some of the speakers at the rally there. Eventually the march set off on its way towards City Hall, making its way towards Tower Bridge.

Class War left the march briefly to protest as it went past One Commercial St, where they had been holding a long series of weekly ‘Poor Doors’ protests against the separate door down a side alley for the social housing tenants in the block. They had briefly suspended the protests a few weeks early when new owner for the building had offered talks about the situation, but these had broken down.

Approaching the Tower of London the protest was joined by Russell Brand riding a bicycle. He had earlier lent support to a number of housing campaigns by residents in estates threatened by evictions.

By the time the march was going across Tower Bridge Class War had rejoined it, and their banners were in the lead.

The march was met on the other side of Tower Bridge by the South London March for Homes, a similar sized protest called by Defend Council Housing and South London People’s Assembly which had started at the Elephant, marching past the former Heygate Estate. The two marches merged to walk on to Potters Fields for the rally outside City Hall.

We had been marching most of the day in light rain, and this got rather heavier for the rally outside City Hall. Together with a large crowd being jammed into a fairly small space it made photography of the rally difficult.

While the rally was still continuing some of the protesters began to leave Potters Fields to protest more actively, led by Class War and other anarchit groups and accompanied by the samba band Rhythms of Revolution.

They moved onto Tooley Street and blocked it for a few minutes, then decided to move off, with police reinforcements who had arrived than taking over their role of blocking the road as the protesters moved off eastwards.

I watched them go, and later heard that after a brief protest at One Tower Bridge, a new development mainly for the over-rich next to Tower Bridge they had taken a long walk to join occupiers on Southwark’s Aylesbury Estate.

But I was cold, wet and tired, and my cameras too, having been exposed to the weather for several hours were becoming temperamental and I waited for a bus to start my journey home.

Much more on My London Diary:
March for Homes: After the Rally
March for Homes: City Hall Rally
March for Homes: Poor Doors
March for Homes: Shoreditch to City Hall
March for Homes: Shoreditch Rally

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Catalonia, Levitation and Robbing the Homeless

Catalonia, Levitation and Robbing the Homeless: Another varied day for me on Saturday 21st October 2017, beginning with a march supporting independence for Catalonia, then going with Class War to levitate Kensington & Chelsea Town Hall and the Daily Mail, finally protesting against Camden Council and the police who had been taking tents away from homeless people in the area.

March in Solidarity with Catalonia – London

Several hundred people, many carrying Catalan flags met at Piccadilly Circus to march through London demanding the immediate release of Catalan politicians Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sanchez and calling for the end of the repression.

They called for a dialogue to accept the mandate of the Catalan referendum which had been declared illegal by the Spanish constitutional court but which went ahead on 1st October. Although only 43% of the registered voters took part it had resulted in a resounding 92% saying ‘Yes’ to Catalonia becoming an independent republic.

Many people had been unable to take past as the following a High Court ruling police raided and forcibly closed some polling stations, with over a thousand civilians being injured. Around 15% of voters are thought to have been denied the chance to vote.

Both Cuixart and Sanchez were arrested on 16th October after leading protests although they had repeatedly called for these to be ‘peaceful’ and ‘civic’ and called for protesters to go home peacefully at the end of the protest. Both were sentenced to 9 years in jail in 2019 but were released following a pardon from the Spanish government in 2021.

The march paused briefly in Trafalgar Square for photographs and then continued down Whitehall for a rally in Parliament Square where I left them.

March in Solidarity with Catalonia

Class War Levitate Kensington Town Hall

It was the 50th anniversary of the Yippee levitation of the Pentagon during anti-Vietnam War protests and Class War’s Ian Bone and shaman Jimmy Kunt (aka Adam Clifford) decided to celebrate by attempting a similar feat at Kensington Town Hall.

Standing on the steps of the entrance to the town hall of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the council responsible for the disastrous fire at Grenfell Tower, Adam called out the demons of councillors including Nicholas Paget-Brown, Rock Feilding-Mellen & Elizabeth Campbell and attempted to levitate the town hall to a height of over 70 metres. “Out, demons, out! Out, demons, out!”

A security officer told them that they couldn’t do that here, but they told her it wasn’t possible to stop a levitation or exorcism and the ceremony went ahead.

Afterwards Ian Bone repeated a well-known quote from 1967 “You mean you didn’t see it, man?”
Class War levitate Kensington Town Hall

Class War levitate the Daily Mail – Kensington

Inspired by their success at the town hall, Class War’s Levitation Brigade then moved on to Northcliffe House, the home of the Daily Mail.

*Ian Bone and Adam Clifford marvel at the levitation*

Security staff there reacted angrily to Class War calling out the demon of Paul Dacre and their attempt to raise the building by over 70 metres, perhaps fearing it might damage the Rolls-Royce parked outside, but the levitation ceremony went ahead despite considerable interference.

Although I took care to stand on the public highway secuirty staff tried a number of times to prevent me taking photographs of the event.

The message on the pavement was ‘How You Gonna Sleep Tonight’?’ But the Daily Mail lacks a conscience.

More pictures at Class War levitate the Daily Mail.

Stop Robbing the Homeless – Kentish Town Police Station

Rather than supporting people sleeping homeless on their streets, Camden Council and the Metropolitan Police have been carrying out a campaign of removing and stealing tents from homeless people ‘in the interest of public safety’.

Despite considerable evidence that this has been happening in the borough, both council and police have made statements to the press denying it.

A small group of protesters carrying tents went into Kentish Town Police Station and asked to be arrested for the offence of carrying illegal items. Police refused to arrest them.

The campaigners say the removal or tents is inhumane and clearly threatens the lives of homeless people in the borough and accuse the police of theft. Clearly Camden Council should be helping the homeless and not attempting to kill them though exposure to the elements.

Stop Robbing the Hom e less

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.

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.

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.

Streets Kitchen March with Homeless – 2016

Streets Kitchen is a UK & Ireland grassroots group working to help the homeless community, providing daily outreaches with food, clothing and information. In London they are active in Camden, Hackney, Kilburn, Clapham, Haringey and elsewhere – and new volunteers and donations are welcome. You can see a short video about their work made by Liberty on YouTube.

On Friday 15th April 2016 Streets Kitchen oranised a rally and march around central London in solidarity with London’s growing homeless community. A giant banner called for ‘No More Deaths On Our Streets’. They brought tents, sleeping bags and food intending to join the Kill the Housing Bill sleepout in Southwark and collected donations.

I met them at a rally on the pavement opposite Downing Street, with speakers who described the effects of government policies on increasing homelessness but also pointed out the role of London Labour Councils including Southwark and Newham who have turned people out of council estates in order to ‘regenerate’ them largely for the benefit of private tenants paying much higher rents, as well working with private developers to enable them to evade their responsibilities to build social housing.

They move on to Whitehall, blocking the traffic and then marching to Trafalgar Square where they held a brief protest before marching up Charing Cross Road to Oxford Street.

The march continued along Oxford St to Oxford Circus, where they set off flares and blocked the junction for a few minutes.

Their next stop was at the BBC, where a line of police blocked the entrance, and they then moved off up Portland Place. They were still marching further away from the final destination, Southwark Council’s offices on Tooley St, south of the river close to Tower Bridge, and it was getting rather dark to take pictures.

I decided I’d had enough and left them for my journey to a warm and comfortable home. We don’t live in luxury but too many in our society don’t have a home to go to, a shameful situation in one of the richest countries in the world – and a country where there are more empty homes than homeless people. Housing is a human right, and one which too many are denied.

More at Streets Kitchen March with Homeless.

March With The Homeless – 2018

March With The Homeless

No More Deaths On Our Streets Saturday 3rd March 2018

A few days ago in February 2023 a report came out that the number of rough sleepers in England has increased for the first time since 2017.

The increase is blamed on the cost-of-living crisis making the various causes of homelessness worse, and the government’s ‘Ending rough sleeping for good’ strategy announced last year has so far failed to be any help.

We are still one of the richer countries in the world, and it is a disgrace that so many have no place to go. London’s Mayor is reported as calling it extremely alarming and saying “It is high time ministers got a grip on the escalating food, energy and housing crises and restored the social security safety net which helps stop people becoming trapped in a cycle of homelessness.”

The area with the largest number is of course London, and within London the boroughs of Westminster and Camden at the heart of London top the figures. As well as having the most people sleeping on the streets, these boroughs are also home to many of the wealthiest people in the country (or at least one of their homes) and of the most egregious examples of over-consumption where the wealthy swarm to spend ridiculous amounts on over-priced goods and services.

The increase has also been greatest in the capital, with the figure in Westminster, the home of our government, alone up from 187 in 2021 to 250 in 2022.

London of course has ridiculously high house prices, stoked in part by foreign investors who own properties just to profit from the increases in prices rather than actually live in them. Many too are owned by offshore trusts, still hiding the actual owners, and often empty or underused.

The problem isn’t really house prices, or a lack of homes – we have more than are needed to give everyone a decent home. But inequality, which continues to rise. And at its roots is the greed of the rich, for whom enough is never enough. And there are ten times as many empty houses as there are homeless people.

The March With The Homeless on Saturday 3rd March 2018 took place are a recent cold snap had killed a number of rough sleepers on the streets of London. As well as organisations supporting street homeless including #solidaritynotcharity, Streets Kitchen, Homeless Outreach Central, and London: March for the homeless there were also some of those homeless taking part.

I found the police reaction to this protest shocking. They came out onto the streets to try to stop it happening and to force those taking part to return to there static protest opposite Downing Street where it began.

As well as officers on foot there were also two police horses trying to control the protest, but whose riders seemed unable to control, particularly in some of the narrower streets. I often had to rush out of their way and at one point I was crushed against a wall by a clearly out of control horse, but fortunately only slightly bruised.

I think the police saw their role as protecting the property, particularly the properties of those owners who had empty properties which they feared the protesters might attempt to occupy. The intention of the march wasn’t to actually occupy properties, but to create a little minor disruption to traffic and noise that would bring attention to the problem and put pressure on the government and authorities to take some effective action. But I think there was little if any media coverage of the event.

They intended to march to a squat in Great Portland Street that had occupied empty commercial premises and was giving food and shelter to homeless people, getting them off the freezing streets. The police seemed to be trying to keep them out of the West End, where they might disturb more people. I had to leave the march when police had halted them at Piccadilly Circus, but I think eventually they did make it and the squat provided food and overnight shelter for around 30 people on the night of the march.

More on My London Diary at No More Deaths On Our Streets.

Cyclists’ Die-In And A Visit To The Oral Squat

On Wednesday 8th November 2017 I spent the evening in Islington.

Vigil for Islington cyclist killed by HGV – Islington Town Hall, Wed 8 Nov 2017

On May 2nd 2017, City trader Jerome Roussel was cycling to work along Pentonville Road when he collided with a heavy goods vehicle which had stopped in the cycle lane. He was seriously injured and died in hospital on June 25th, seven weeks later.

Police say that the cyclist had told them he had put his head down and had failed to see that the lorry had pulled in ahead of him and he crashed into the back of it.

Cycling around parts of London there are many streets with ‘cycle lanes’ marked at the edges of the roads but often obstructed by parked vehicles. The driver in this case had only just pulled into it, intending to turn into a side street, but for many others the cycle lane is a convenient parking place, perhaps for a few minutes while they visit a shop, or for much longer.

These roads have cycle lanes because there is enough faster moving traffic on them to make them dangerous for cyclists. But cars and lorries parked on them mean that cyclists have to move out into this traffic. We need a law which makes it an offence to park on cycles lanes – and for it to be enforced.

*Islington Labour – For the few who drive*

Better still we need far more physically separated cycle lanes, though where these exist there are also sometimes cars parked on them, rendering them unusable, and sometimes road surfaces so poorly maintained that they are uncomfortable to ride on and even at times dangerous. Even small potholes that a car would cruise over can send the unwary cyclist flying.

As I wrote back in 2017, “Islington has not built a single protected cycle route in over 20 years and Transport Minister Jessye Norman has so far failed to sign the the commencement order to allow TfL to fine HGVs and traffic that drive into mandatory cycle lanes, such as the one on Pentonville Road where Jerome Roussel was killed. Islington, responsible for 95% of the roads in its area has reserves of £277 million (and growing) and campaigners say it should spend some of this on making its streets safer for cyclists and pedestrians.”

I don’t cycle in Islington, but although the council on its web site states it is “on a mission to improve cycling in Islington” I get the impression that relatively little has changed since Roussel’s death on a cycle lane in 2017. At the 2022 elections the London Cycling Campaign was calling on Islington Council to provide protected cycle routes on all busy roads by 2026, for low traffic neighbourhoods to cover the borough by 2024, to provide sustainable freight hubs, to set more ambitious targets for sustainable transport and provide secure cycle parking.

Cyclists gathered on the pavement outside Islington Town Hall and listened to a number of speeches before police stopped traffic and the campaigners held a 5 minute silent die-in on the road in memory of Jerome Roussel, after which there were more speeches and a final address by Donnachadh McCarthy.

More at Vigil for Islington cyclist killed by HGV.

ORAL squat empty NatWest Bank – Upper St, Islington, Wed 8 Nov 2017

As I walked back from Islington Town Hall to the Underground station with another photographer we met activists who knew us outside the squatted former NatWest Bank on Upper St and stopped to talk.

*Inside things are a little messy, but there is no real damage*

This had been squatted around a week earlier by the Order of Rampaging Anarchist Lunatics (ORAL) and they were using it as a centre to provide tea, coffee, clothing and shelter for the street homeless of the area.

*The building was well lit and warm – the squatters are paying for electricity*

We were invited inside for a tour of the squat and to take photographs. The squatters were expecting to be evicted in the near future, and actually were a few days later, after which they published a ‘final communique’ on their Facebook page. You can read this in full on My London Diary, but here is the first paragraph:

Several years ago, what began as a ridiculous idea to form a satirical nation of squatters evolved into one of the most infamous land pirate crews known around the world. Originally coined the Autonomous National of Anarchist Libertarians [ANAL] we’ve penetrated deep into London, forming a property portfolio that undoubtedly far exceeds any other crew; Having taken roughly 60 buildings in zone 1 over a period of around 4 years. Most notably Admiralty Arch.
My London Diary

Their communique goes on to say that they felt their activities had acheived nothing and that they would be forming a new group focused on “setting the example of how to evolve society & humanity” though “construction & creation” and would shortly be opening “a new community hub”.

My assessment was rather more positive, in that they and other activists had drawn attention to the scandal of so many empty properties while we have a housing crisis. Thanks to the Tory programme of austerity we had seen a huge increase in the number of homeless people and there should be legal ways to bring these properties into use. The current situation remains shameful in what is still one of the world’s wealthiest countries.

ORAL Squat empty NatWest Bank.

Refugee Children, Dead Cyclists & A Squat

Refugee Children, Dead Cyclists & A Squat – 11th February 2017

Dubs Now – Shame on May

Five years ago, on Saturday 11th February 2017, a crowd of supporters of Citizens UK and Safe Passage joined Lord Alf Dubs at Downing St to take a petition to Theresa May urging her to reverse the decision to stop offering legal sanctuary to unaccompanied refugee children.

The Tory government had been forced into an unusual humanitarian response when Parliment passed the Dubs amendment, and they were then given a list of over 800 eligible children – although there were known to be more whose details were not recorded. And because of Lord Dubs, around 300 have been allowed into the UK. But although twice that number remain in limbo, many in the Calais camps, Prime Minister Theresa May decided to end the scheme.

Among those who spoke at the protest before an emergency petition with over 40,000 signatures was taken to Downing St were speakers from four London Labour councils who all said they had told the government they would take more children but their offers had not been taken up.

Dubs Now – Shame on May

Invest in Cycling – Stop Killing Cyclists

Cyclists and supporters met in Trafalgar Square to march to the Treasury on the edge of Parliament Square to call for a significant increase in spending on infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians on our streets.

That week five people were killed on London streets as a result of careless or dangerous driving – accidents are rare, but such deaths are made much more likely by a road system engineered around the needs of car and other vehicle drivers and cutting their journey times through the city. Facilities for cyclists and pedestrians have long been treated as secondary and chronically underfunded.

But these 5 killed, who were remembered in the protest and die-in are a small fraction of the numbers who die prematurely each week in London as a result of high and often illegal levels of air pollution – estimated at around 180 per week, as well as the much higher number of those whose lives are seriously affected by health problems – both figures including many who drive. Powerful lobbies for motorists and vehicle manufacturers have led to the domination of our cities by cars and lorries.

There are huge health benefits from cleaning the air by cutting down traffic and congestion, and also by encouraging healthy activities including walking and cycling. And the main factor discouraging people from taking to bikes for journeys to school, work and shopping etc is the danger from cars and lorries. Better public transport also helps, particularly in cutting pollution levels, and anything that cuts the use of petrol and diesel vehicles will reduce the major contribution this makes to global warming.

Invest in Cycling – Stop Killing Cyclists

ANAL squat in Belgravia

My final event that day was a visit to 4 Grosvenor Gardens, a rather grand house short distance from Buckingham Palace (and more relevant to me, from Victoria Station.) Squatting collective the Autonomous Nation of Anarchist Libertarians (ANAL) had taken over this house on February 1st after having been evicted from the Belgrave Square house owned by Russian oligarch Andrey Goncharenko which they occupied for a week.

I’d meant to go there a week earlier, but a domestic emergency had called me away earlier in the day from a protest at the US Embassy before a programme of workshops and seminars in the seven-storey squat had begun. There was nothing special happening on the afternoon I visited (though some things were happening in the evening) but I was welcomed by the occupiers, several of whom recognised me, and they were happy for me to wander around the building and take photographs.

Apart from being careful to respect the privacy of some of the occupiers who were sleeping or resting in a couple of the rooms I was able to go everywhere from the basement to the top floor, but the door leading onto the roof was locked, probably to stop any possible access from there by bailiffs. Like many other houses and hotels in the area it has a view into the grounds of Buckingham Palace, but I had to make do with the view from a rather dusty window, or the less interesting view from lower down where windows could be opened.

Few squats have blue plaques – this one for soldier and archaeologist Lieutenant General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers, but more recently it has been in use for offices, business meetings and conferences. The squatters have tried hard to cause no serious damage and had last week turned out some people who had come to make a mess of the place.

There are around 1.5 million empty buildings in the UK, many like this deliberately kept empty as investments, their value increasing year on year. The number is enough to enough to house the homeless many times over. ANAL say that properties like this should be used for short-term accommodation while they remain empty and they have opened it as a temporary homeless shelter for rough-sleepers.

It remained in use for almost month, with the squat finally evicted at 8am on 27th February. As I ended my post, “There clearly does need to be some way to bring empty properties back into use, and councils should have much greater powers than at present to do so. Until that happens, squatting seems to be the only possible solution.”

ANAL squat in Belgravia

Property Vultures Self Awards

*Outside the Housing Awards event at Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane*

We suffer from a housing benefits system that actually benefits landlords rather than tenants and a housing policy that is led by the advice of estate agents and developers.

Combined with governments dedicated to austerity and cuts this has led to a record level of evictions, doubling of rough sleeping in London and the worst shortage of truly affordable housing in history, while property developers cash in by building luxury flats for largely overseas investors who have made profits from rapidly rising market prices for flats which are often left empty for all or most of the year.

*Protesters pay a brief visit to Foxtons on Park Lane*

The attack on social housing was largely begun by Margaret Thatcher, who forced councils to sell off housing stock under her ‘right to buy’ scheme, and stopped councils from using the funds to replace them. Many or most of these properties were later sold to private landlords and became ‘buy to let’ properties at high market rents.

Housing Action Trusts, set up under the 1988 Housing Act took many council estates out of council control, eventually handing them on to housing associations, many of which have become hard to distinguish from commercial landlords.

New Labour ratcheted up the crisis with their emphasis on estate regeneration – whether the tenants wanted it or not. Though possibly begun with good intentions it became a tool used by many councils to demolish social housing and replace it by mixed developments in cooperation with private developers or housing associations which often contain only small amounts of genuinely social housing at ‘council rents’ (though with much less security of tenure) along with various shared ownership and so-called ‘affordable’ rent schemes and a large proportion of properties at market prices.

Often the original tenants and leaseholders of such regenerated estates have been ‘socially cleansed’, forced to move out of the area to lower cost fringe areas. Over 50,000 families have been forced to move out of London, where many more properties remain empty, thanks to housing policies that serve greed rather than need.

*Protesters held their own award ceremony outside the hotel*

I’m not a fan of awards ceremonies, industry events to pat each other on the back and make effusive speeches. Too often the awards go to the wrong people, but in the case of property developers there are perhaps only wrong people involved. But the protesters held their own, with large cardboard cups going for the Placard Making Award, Demonstration of the Year, Occupation of the Year and Young Protester Personalities of the Year.

Those who turned up to protest outside the plush hotel where the awards event was taking place included many who have been affected by the greed of developers and are fighting against the demolition of their estate or their eviction so that property owners can replace them by wealthier occupiers at market rents.

More pictures on My London Diary: Property Awards at Mayfair Hotel