[TheLandIsOurs] Public space intervention - 12pm Sat 13th Feb 2016 - Potters Field Park (next to City Hall)

[Ram Selva]

Thank you for the forwarded post!

Seeing the bigger picture of Planning upheaval:

> Public space intervention - Space Probe Alpha
> Midday, Saturday 13th February 2016 - Potters Field Park (next to City 
> Hall),
> Tooley Street, Southwark, SE1 2AA London, United Kingdom

   12pm ...ie in four hours!

Conversations and follow up actions must continue.


...Housing Bill
...Tory Bill
...End of Council Housing
    etc.
     miss the Planning upheaval applied on top of Localism Act 2011


Please note above in tandem with what is in Committee Stage in the House 
of [Land]Lords.

http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2015-16/housingandplanning/documents.html

-- the first real "English votes for English laws" manipulation for a 
long period in time that sailed through Houses of [stealing]Commons 
without any opposition

-- story of very last minute 65 page amendment tabled in to a very late 
night session should wake anyone up!

KtHB [1] courtesy of DCH [2] has called for a National Demonstration on 
13 March starting from Lincoln's Inn Field under the banner 'Secure 
Homes For All'

[1]
https://killthehousingbill.wordpress.com/
-- little or no focus on the key Planning aspect of it all

[2]
http://defendcouncilhousing.org.uk/dch/
-- please download briefing and flier for distribution


On 12-02-2016 22:28, Mark Brown mark at tlio.org.uk [TheLandIsOurs] wrote:
> Public space intervention - Space Probe Alpha
> Midday, Saturday 13th February 2016 - Potters Field Park (next to City 
> Hall),
> Tooley Street, Southwark, SE1 2AA London, United Kingdom
> Ref: https://www.facebook.com/events/1191694480841480/
> 
> 
> Taken from facebook page:
> Dear Space Agents,
> 
> g
> Thank you for all your support and participation over 2015. With 2016 
> upon us,
> the time has come for our first public space intervention (i.e. Space 
> Probe!).
> On 13th February, please join us in Potters Field Park (next to City 
> Hall on the
> South Bank) for an eventful afternoon. Will Self, Anna Minton, Bradley 
> L
> Garrett, Sian Berry, Daniel Raven-Ellison, Mark Thomas and others will 
> help to
> organise a series of activities that will challenge the transfer of 
> public space
> into private hands around London.
> 
> 
> We need everyone possible out for this intervention so PLEASE SHARE 
> this event
> in any way you can. We look forward to seeing you there and making 
> history
> through the first of many interventions that will aim to protect our 
> public
> spaces.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The following is written by Bradley L. Garrett
> (Author of ‘Explore Everything: Place-hacking the City’)
> Ref: http://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Public_space_intervention
> 
> 
> We are losing our cities. The land grab taking place around us is a 
> subtle, soft
> play, where the dirty work takes place behind a veneer of affable brand
> management, swanky ‘starchitecture’ and a general sensation that our 
> dear old
> town, whether it be Bristol, Boston or Bangkok, is stepping up as a 
> ‘global
> city’. We are expected to be proud.
> 
> 
> In London, the first time we went through such dramatic landscape 
> convulsions,
> in the 19th century, we were left with public infrastructure – sewers,
> electricity tunnels, transport – that served the populace for 150 
> years. The
> next architectural spasm was when we re-housed the population bombed 
> out during
> the war.
> 
> 
> Today, we find ourselves once again hemmed in by construction machinery 
> on all
> sides, but the new city being built, contra to those times past, is not 
> for us.
> There are 263 higher-than-20-storey buildings currently planned for 
> London and
> 
> nobody seems to know who will be able to afford to live in them. 
> Council blocks
> are being ripped down across the capital and in a number of boroughs 
> rents have
> doubled since 2008, causing a mass exodus of long-term communities to 
> the
> furthest branches of the public transport network and beyond. Where 
> communities
> are ripped asunder, private issues become public issues. But where to 
> air them?
> 
> 
> One of the subsidiary effects of the rampant redevelopment of the city 
> is that
> when the construction dust settles, often we find that open-air public 
> spaces
> once maintained by civil bodies have been quietly passed into the hands 
> of
> corporations as part of austerity-driven buyouts. In these ‘new’ 
> spaces, our
> public rights are severely curtailed by corporate land management 
> policies,
> policed by aggressive security guards in florescent vests, and 
> monitored by the
> swiveling eyes of dome cameras tracking our every transgression. 
> Photography is
> banned. Loitering is banned. Protest is banned. The public realm 
> becomes space
> fit only for consumption; all other activities are rendered subversive, 
> deviant,
> out-of-control.
> 
> 
> Where the councils still hold the deed, they are often bullied by 
> developers
> into ramming through draconian legislation such as Public Space 
> Protection
> Orders meant to ‘tidy-up the city’ in anticipation of regeneration. 
> These orders
> criminalise busking, street drinking, rough sleeping, dog-walking and, 
> of
> course, gathering. People gathering in public space are a threat to 
> corporate
> power – they might talk to each other, ask questions, demand 
> explanations.
> 
> 
> Our cities will likely have a financial future as places for tourism 
> and
> exchange, places where the rich will park their money in speculative 
> real estate
> and artists will make a fortune churning out even more speculative 
> crappy public
> art. What is in question here is whether our cities have a cultural 
> future as
> citizens are increasingly pushed to the margins. Perhaps the only 
> viable option
> left to such a disempowered populace is direct action. In 1932 over 400 
> people
> trespassed onto a moorland plateau called Kinder Scout to contest the 
> closure of
> public access by landed gentry. Corporate closures today, swathed they 
> might be
> in seductive sales-speak, are no less violent in their closure of 
> public space
> and must be fought with similar verve.
> 
> 
> It is time for our urban rambler moment; it is time to reclaim our 
> cities.
> 
> 
> The time has come for our first public space intervention. On 13th 
> February,
> please join us in Potters Field Park (next to City Hall on the South 
> Bank) for
> an eventful afternoon. Will Self, Anna Minton, Bradley L Garrett, Sian 
> Berry,
> Daniel Raven-Ellison, Mark Thomas and others will help to organise a 
> series of
> activities that will challenge the transfer of public space into 
> private hands
> around London.
> 
> 
> We look forward to seeing you there and making history through the 
> first of many
> interventions that will aim to protect our public spaces.