UPDATE: See here for video of security guard attack on Wednesday night.
A big showdown is brewing at the Sweets Way estate in Barnet, North London. High court bailiffs and cop reinforcements are preparing to swoop on the estate in a major operation to clear those defending the homes and fighting social cleansing. Already things have started getting heavy, as a new firm of security thugs (“Dorman & Co”) arrived yesterday and starting attacking people last night.
But the squatters are ready to resist. Numbers are growing, and the heart of the estate is now barricaded off. They are calling for support: get down this weekend to build and reinforce the barricades and prepare for action. The eviction is expected any time from Monday. Below we post a new call-out from the occupiers. See also thesweetswayresists blog and you can check their twitter account for updates.
Bailiffs on my doorstep… Barricades on my doors!
The long running resistance at the Sweets Way estate, established by residents and families, and based in North London is still unbroken.
Day after day it grows stronger and night after night we work together to repopulate this potentially amazing, yet at present, almost entirely vacant ‘ghost estate’. We are repopulating these empty homes in order to prevent the unnecessary demolition of the site, ‘to make way for exclusive and unaffordable housing’, and to protect the home and support the struggle of the last remaining resident of the estate.
Today’s Sweets Way:
The new “residents” on today’s Sweets Way estate are as varied as a pick ’n’ mix, a unique collective including first time protesting families with kids, ex-resident mums and dads, peace activists, environmental activists, radical activists and anarchists (to name but a few). They now occupy a small percentage of the estate’s 142 houses and work together to keep the resistance alive. They are somehow managing to work together without major difficulties!
Try not to be put off by this `rare’ mix and instead try look at its positives, at the end of the day what is important to know is that we all have the same aim, just conflicting ideas on how to achieve it!
The Sweets Way Resistance seems to be creating a sort of unity, something we rarely find in today’s `versions of community’ and this is because all, the old residents, the new residents and all the people who pass by in solidarity, all have a common underlying problem… the system we `seem’ forced to live in!
This is what we need to focus on!
This is what we need to work together on eliminating!
Some of us are tired of weak responses to what can only be described as brutal attacks on people’s lives, some of us believe that just as previous residents were dragged screaming from their homes, shall be the bailiffs from ours and some of us are ready to put up this fight!
Come see for yourself, visit the 24 hour SWEETS WAY RESISTANCE CAMP, and if you want to help support, join in, cook, build barricades, reinforce our existing barricades, come skipping with us, decorate spaces, open new homes, put whatever your personal skill is to good use, it will be appreciated! Bring your own sleeping bag if possible!
The Free 