Cardiff Squatters Network

Practical Squatting Evenings go weekly!

2015-04-07T11:37:48Z

Cardiff Squatters Network is now planning to host weekly Practical Squatting Evenings.

They will be a chance to get an introduction to squatting through a practical workshop, and a discussion about ‘squatters rights’ and recent experiences of local squatters.

These will be on Sunday evenings at a new squat, to be announced soon.

Also for more news and updates from week to week see @CDiffSquatters on twitter.

Illegal eviction attempt due today outside Cardiff Castle

2015-03-18T14:09:23Z

Cardiff Castle belongs to the people of Cardiff, it was given to us in 1947.

”In 1947 the Castle was given to the people of Cardiff by the 5th Marquess of Bute.”

See: http://www.cardiffcastle.com/the-butes/

Cardiff County Council will today once again further the claim that the castle is theirs, not the people’s, as they send bailiffs to the #OpSafeWinter camp, that’s been there for 18days now. This camp has been supported by many people in Cardiff in protest against the unnecessary government austerity agenda. It is also a homelessness solidarity camp.

Bailiffs are due today because the camp was taken to court yesterday and Cardiff County Council was awarded the ‘possession’ of the land through an interim possession order. The paperwork for this interim possession order was filled out incorrectly however, just as the paperwork for the squatted pub in Cathays was in autumn last year.

This eviction is also dubious as Cardiff County Council are only the maintainers of land owned by the people of Cardiff.

Please come to the Castle this morning, if you can, to defend it.

Picture: #OpSafeWinter in Queen Street, December 2014.

Gower Pub squatters resist eviction!

2014-11-21T17:39:16Z

Squatters and supporters at the Gower Pub in Cathays today successfully resisted an eviction attempt. The squatters were told that they were about to commit a criminal offence by staying in the building as an Interim Position Order had been granted by the County Court. The squatters pointed out that the IPO was invalid as there were at least 4 mistakes. This was after the court case the day before in which mistakes in the paperwork were admitted by the judge and the solicitor was asked to take the stand to give evidence under oath to support their claim to the building.

After a 15 minute stand off, as 3 Orbis sitex company workers were waiting, and many conversations took place between police and the bailiffs, there was eventually an agreement that the court papers should be served again. They were then filled in there and then, with parts that the court should complete, completed by the solicitor instead, the legality of this is still to be determined. There was also still two technical errors carried over from the previous order.

Photos and video from the eviction attempt coming soon.

To celebrate there is a benefit gig at the Gower, 29 Gwennyth Street, CF24 4PH for local causes including migrant solidarity and anti-homeless campaigns.

Live music tonight from Ash Victim, Raz Chaoten, Taffy Twp and more! Booze available for donation for No Borders struggles.

Spread the word! Doors 7pm.

Spread the word! The Gower Pub in Cathays is being squatted!

2014-11-19T13:18:17Z

We have a meeting today (19th) at 5:30pm to talk about our plans and hope you can join us.

29 Gwennyth St, Cardiff CF24 4PH

Squatting workshop at the RBU tonight – “Still legal, but harder!”

2014-11-06T13:42:53Z

Some squatters from the Cardiff Squatters Network will host an info-talk tonight about practicalities and legalities of squatting in England and Wales since the 2012 law change.

The workshop will be at 7pm and last around 2 hours.

This is part of the Red and Black Umbrella social centre 3 year anniversary week events.

A full calendar of which can be found here:

Social Centres Gathering 2014

2014-10-29T16:34:34Z

Cardiff squatters are heading to Nottingham to share experience of setting up and helping to maintain squatted Social Centres in Cardiff, Newport and Swansea. This is after visits to the Cwtch Community Centre during very early Red and Black Umbrella days, and more recently supporting the Newport Action Centre – which has sadly had to close temporarily (more info about that coming soon with a statement from the squatters there).

The Social Centres Gathering 2014, at the Sumac Centre, Nottingham is “a weekend of talks and skill shares for anyone interested or involved in autonomous social centres”. While not all Social Centres in the UK are squatted, many of them have a history of being opened as a squat (and then becoming owned or rented) or by squatters that looked for options that help to maintain community-orientated squatting.

We’re hoping to hear more from people all over the UK and Dublin, and build stronger networks in the battles for autonomous spaces, taking derelict buildings and making them our homes and spaces of sanctuary and away from gentrification and oppression in ‘normal’ society.

Talks planned include:

Info and skill-sharing on

– Setting up social centres
– Making social centres last
– Making autonomous spaces in unusual places

as well as:

– Safer spaces
– Conflict resolution and solving general disputes
– Getting started / Problems and pitfalls when starting a social centre
– Making Social Centres in unusual places
– Building networks of support / Developing connections between Social Centres
– Issues around maintaining a Social Centre (visioning, decision making)
– Social centres and the neighbourhood / engagement or colonization?

If you want to know more, or are interested in coming with us to the gathering, you can email us on cardiffsquatters[@]riseup.net or reach us on our temporary phone: 07405 788 793

Long live squatting! Long live Social Centres!

Cardiff Homeless Action event with Cardiff Squatters workshop and meeting

2014-10-07T14:05:41Z

The Cardiff Squatters Network are running a workshop at the World Homeless Day event in Cardiff this Saturday at Cathays Community Centre.
The event is aiming to raise awareness and to get people involved in taking further action together with people who are homeless.

It’s an all day event, starting at 3pm with workshops, free-shop, information stalls, activities for kids, art, music and free vegan food from Food Not Bombs.

There will be a workshop at the event at 4:30pm with a legal update on squatting as well as a question and answer session. We also propose to make the second half of this workshop the next meeting of the Cardiff Squatters Network.

There are other workshops on the day on substance abuse, creative writing for mental health, anti-bedroom tax campaigns, migrant destitution and dumpster diving (skipping).

For more about the event see: http://cardiffhomelessaction.org

Newport Rises to Action – Statement from new squatted Social Centre

2014-09-22T09:50:12Z

Inspired by the recent Week of Action against the NATO Summit in Newport, a group of local activists took control of an abandoned office block on Lower Dock Street, secured the building and now announce their intention to launch a new social centre and creative space for the Newport community.

The Newport Action Centre will host a weekly free vegan café, info-talks, various workshops, skill-shares, an art space and regular events to raise money for local causes, as well as being a home for some of us to run the space from.

We chose to do all this in a building that has a long history of providing a focal point for local communities and will use consensus and solidarity to prolong that role.

The building – which is directly opposite the passport office – had stood empty for around six months, gathering dust like so many other buildings in Newport while the cost of living continues to rise and forces more and more people towards poverty.

We chose to reclaim it for community use at a time when 9,500 police had besieged Newport, turning parts of South Wales into open-air prisons and openly flaunting their publicly-funded killing-machines on our streets. We went under the nose of the local police – whose headquarters stands just some meters away – entering the building without causing any damage or disruption and with the intention of liberating a space in increasingly oppressive, suffocating surroundings.

During the week of the NATO Summit we all got a taste of the power the state has over our lives. They used our money to control our movements with barriers and road closures, filled the skies with helicopters to watch us, and harassed and intimidated those who chose to resist the circus of warmongering that was the summit.

It is likely that many of the surveillance measures known to have been taught to Gwent Police – and that we’ve seen imposed upon us – will remain in place long after the Summit is gone, with a recent report from the ‘Newport Business Development Taskforce’ recommending that Newport be turned into a ‘living lab’ for such technologies. The report was written by Simon Gibson, an associate of Terry Matthews, businessmen who have made huge fortunes working closely with arms companies. The recommended strategy will personally benefit both of them enormously. Despite being a city known for the arts, the old Arts College is now a block of luxury flats – part of a process which is forcing house prices up in Newport – and recently many of the arts courses at the local university have been axed, with talk of specialising in software courses instead. The University building at Caerleon is now also about to be sold, with Terry Matthews probably the first in line to use it to get his hands into more arms and surveillance companies.

We intend to create an alternative to these surroundings – a space where people can gather to discuss ideas without fear of being tracked and monitored, be creative without being constrained by social norms, learn outside of a narrowing education system, which fosters competition, and live without being restricted by unnecessary barriers and borders.

We have already had our first event, where we discussed the impact of the Scottish referendum result, and we plan to open on Sunday September 28th for our first weekly café day.

We hope you can join us, we invite people to help make this space live up to its potential and be a resource for the community to share in the struggle for justice.

Newport Action Centre crew.

newportactioncentre@riseup.net

CARDIFF CROWD BURNS OBAMA EFFIGY

2014-09-10T15:07:03Z

Dated 30th August 2014

An effigy of US president Barack Obama was burnt in Bute Park on Saturday 30th August. The action was organised by a group calling itself ‘Cardiff Anarchists, Travellers, Squatters and Homeless Individuals Together’ (…what others might know as the Cardiff Squatters Network) and was attended by around 40 local young people.

This symbolic action came just days before the real Obama was due to attend an official dinner at Cardiff Castle.

The effigy was first put on trial by activists in fancy dress. The prosecution accused Obama of a list of war crimes, citing children killed by drone strikes in Afghanistan and other countries. A man with devil horns acted as the president’s defence lawyer and attempted to convince the court that the accused was just a “lovable rogue”.

“Boys will be boys, and presidents will be presidents. What’s a little bit of cheeky genocide between friends?” he said. “Who here hasn’t committed a war crime?”

A guilty verdict was returned by the raucous audience, and the judge broke her gavel trying to call the court to order. The effigy was sentenced to death by electrocution, and a colander was placed on its head.
However, the crowd had other ideas and quickly set fire to the dummy. As the flames engulfed it
a police officer arrived and people quickly dispersed.

“We didn’t plan to burn the president, but the play took on a life of its own,” said Anon Davies, one of the activists. “The crowd were really engaged, there was a real sense of unity. They were all laughing along and just started shouting “burn him!” Next thing you knew, half of them had their lighters out.”

Less than a week later the real Barack Obama joined other world leaders at Celtic Manor resort in Newport for an international NATO conference. Local activists argue that NATO fights aggressive wars to maintain western control over oil and other natural resources. They argue that the UK spends billions of pounds on NATO annually and this would be better spent on public services.

Obama is currently facing opposition at home over his controversial signing of the unpopular NDAA Act. This law allows the president to deploy troops on US soil, and to assassinate any American without trial. There is now a cross-party action in the US Senate, to impeach him for High Treason.

“It’s been horrible to see Cardiff under lockdown like this,” said Ceri Williams, who was in the audience in the park. “There have been police with assault rifles in the city centre, and army helicopters flying overhead. The play was fun. It just made the rest of it look completely ridiculous, to be honest.”

For more information please contact Sarah Smith:
sarahsmith9011@outlook.com

Statement from Squat50 – new Cardiff squat

2014-08-06T10:46:45Z

We are currently occupying the Sixth Form College Building on Newport Road, and transforming it into a space for the community to use. We have been working towards an open day to show people the work we have done and explain what we are about.

We are doing all this on a tiny budget and learning as we are going. Our lives aren’t perfect and our project might not be perfect but we’re building together, putting aside our differences, like we hope everyone can, and creating something beautiful, unique and community based.

We have already cleaned up the building and the surrounding area, risking our own safety in the process to pick up used syringes, which have been around this building since long before we arrived, and disposing of them properly. To continue making this a safe space for the community, we are twice daily checking for and disposing properly of any more that we find.

As far as we know this building has been empty for two years, a situation all too common in Cardiff, when the population of people homeless is growing.
There are plans to build 40 flats here, which would be a massive unneeded disruption in this part of our community. We have already collected over 100 signatures from people living in the local area, in less than two days, opposing these plans and supporting our projects and vision with a passion.

We are planning to continue to keep the land next to us as a community car park, benefitting people in an area which has seen commuters parking outside people’s houses. Parking problems will get worse if the out-of-character development goes ahead. We are staying to stop this happening.

We have been careful to keep noise to a minimum, due to elderly neighbours in our community, and we believe a building site will be a stressful environment for all, but particularly the elderly and those attempting to learn in the nearby school.

One of our projects is to use the space to help to restart Cardiff People’s University; providing a range of unaccredited, but good quality, courses “by people, for people” and all free of charge.

The majority of us in this building have been through the housing list and realised how little help there is and how stressful it can be. We aim to offer unbiased and wide-ranging advice, information and support for, without judgement, or patronising, anyone in a similar position. This will include courses run by ourselves and information on where anyone struggling financially, or who finds themselves homeless, can get the best help, e.g food, clothes, shelter. We will also have a ‘free-shop’ of donated goods, open for anyone, where everything will be free.

We invite everyone who is positive minded and open-hearted to help us or take advantage of the advice we are offering and the projects we are aiming to make happen.

Everyone needs a little bit of help, even us, and we are extremely grateful to our local neighbours, many of whom have already been kind enough to donate us goods, furniture, gardening equipment and flowers, which we are in the process of planting for a community garden.

From
The Squat 50 Collective