Tony Wrench roundhouse on BBC Wales April 2004 TLIO Castell Henllys occupation

[Tony Gosling]

Brithdir Mawr The Land Is Ours Tony Wrench Pembrokeshire roundhouse 
April 2004 Castell Henllys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu8D0ZpD5bA

The actions mainly consisted of a number of surprise tactical 
occupations at key sites in the area Castell Henllys & Haverfordwest
http://www.tlio.org.uk/node/19
  The first one to take place was at Castell Henllys which is popular 
tourist spot because itself has a number of recreated ancient 
roundhouses. These got planning permission because that the National 
Park planners gave themselves permission to build them. No one lives 
in these dwellings, at least they didn't until the first surprise 
visit from us lot. Just around closing time on Good Friday one of the 
houses was occupied and locked up. A section 6 notice was displayed 
on the door stating our squatters rights and our intention to stay 
and live there. A huge banner was erected that could be read from the 
main road that read "Roundhouses Aren't History" and a number of 
other dwellings and tents were also put up in the grounds.
  This first occupation achieved a number of things. Firstly it 
provided us with a beautiful space to base ourselves for free for the 
weekend. Secondly it drew attention to the National Park's hypocrisy 
and double standards in allowing this type of dwelling. And finally 
it cost the National Park some money. This was Easter weekend and 
normally would have been a lucrative time for the National Park's 
tourist attraction.
  On Saturday, there was a procession from the nearby town of Newport 
to Brithdir Mawr and Tony's roundhouse. The aim was to try to 
persuade him not to take it down. He had already enlisted a whole 
bunch of people as his demolition squad. The demo did persuade him 
but to make sure the house was squatted by protestors. This meant 
Tony and his wife had to move out to one of the smaller roundhouses 
and they couldn't demolish the building because they would first have 
to get the squatters evicted.
  On Sunday the third occupation took place. This was the occupation 
of some land by the side of the A487 (the main road to Castell 
Henllys) and the building of another roundhouse on it. This 
temporary, straw bale dwelling provided an alternative tourist 
attraction and an info centre about low impact dwellings was set up 
here. It was called the "Low Impact Homes Expo" and a large number of 
locals and other people who came from further away dropped by to find 
out what we were up to and learn about low-impact development.

The demo:
  On Tuesday the main site at Castell Henllys was decamped and 
everyone that was still around headed down to Haverfordwest for a 
demo to the offices of Pembrokeshire National Park planning 
department. This was an incredibly fluffy demo and before the demo 
started the police explained that they wanted part of it to take part 
on the pavement. I thought this was pretty crap but no one seemed to 
mind. The organisers probably didn't care know they still had their 
trump card up their sleeves.
  The demo itself was OK. Very musical with bagpipes and drums and 
lots of kids and very hippiesque too.
  When we arrived at the offices the police were obviously on the 
case and, not wanting to see reenactment of June 18th in this little 
welsh town, had a police photographer carefully positioned in one of 
the first floor windows.
  Just below a thin blue line of police cordon tape clearly showed us 
where could and could not go. But the whole thing was so chilled out 
and fluffy: there was food and music and kids and dogs playing in the 
small empty car park directly in front of the office buildings.
  What we wanted was to talk to Catherine Milner, one of the planners 
who was refusing to give permission to the roundhouse and who wanted 
to see it demolished. This didn't seem a particularly demanding 
request as she had known about this demo for 3 weeks. But instead she 
sent a guy from the IT department. He said he couldn't answer any 
questions and was only there to take the petition.
http://www.tlio.org.uk/Action_to_save_Tony_Wrenchs_Roundhouse