MICK Coats' question about illegal fly-tipping on Spodden Valley off Rooley Moor Road, did not evoke much response from the assembled councillors on the Labour dominated Rochdale Township Committee meeting tonight. Sullen councillors sat stiffly as Mr Coats asked what the owners of the controversial site invested with asbestos intend to do to stop or resolve the problem of the fly-tipping.
Ten days ago the Mail on Sunday journalists Ross Slater and Sanchez Manning warned of how an idyllic country estate endured the 'shocking toll of fly-tipping gangs who despoil Britain'.
The Mail story rells of how 'Balaclava-clad intruders used bolt-cutters to break into (an) estate (in rural Shropshire) .... and dump up to 200 tons of rubbish in woodland'.
As a consequence the Mail on Sunday reports that the Staffordshire Police are appealing for information.
The Mail journalists comment on the situation regardin waste disposal across the country that we in Rochdale are all familiar with:
'Local authority waste collection services are being cut, leading to criminals offering to dispose of waste at knockdown prices. They then dump it illegally.'
As the Mail on Sunday rages about the crisis of illegal dumping, Mr. Coats appealed the Rochdale councillors tonight for some kind of response but amid the concern about the state of debis being deposited on the slopes of Spodden Valley, from the assembled councillors reply came there none!
The best Mick Coats can hope for is that a written reply will be forthcoming shortly.
Showing posts with label shropshire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shropshire. Show all posts
Wednesday, 22 March 2017
Friday, 17 January 2014
At Celia Otter's Funeral
Celia Otter
The service was Humanist, but it was performed in a small medieval church. The graveyard fell into disuse in the 13th Century, yet the Church continued to be in use until the 18th Century. Both it and the nearby Westhope College are part of a Quaker charity, and the graveyard was opened up as a green cemetery around 20 years ago; when Celia bought a plot on the burial site. Memorial donations given yesterday went to Celia's favourite Charity: the International Animal Rescue.
First impressions at the nearby railway station of Craven Arms were that it was not a very romantic place, nor was it improved when I met Martin Gilbert from Cumbria in a cafe on the main road inside Tommy Tuffin's supermarket. This all changed as our taxi sped into the green Shropshire countryside which Celia so loved, and we strode up to the small church were the door was opened by the celebrant, Sue Faulder.
Tributes followed and the music of Bach's 'Sheep may safely graze' played as tears fell. Celia taught in London, and later lived in Oxford where Celia and Laurens' daughter, Fiona, was born. A schoolfriend, Anthea Nex, who knew Celia when she was at school when they were both 13-years-old, spoke first of their experiences in Portsmouth, and of their cycling trips to Europe. Celia we were told was both popular and forthright.
It was in London that she met the man who was to become her husband, Laurens Otter, during their activities in the campaign against nuclear weapons at the beginning of the 1960s. Celia was later to gain a prison record for these activities which included civil disobedience against the bomb. Martin Gilbert told me that she and Laurens attended the founding of the new British Anarchist Federation in Bristol in 1963.
Andrea Burden, who knew Celia as a teacher in Shropshire, had met her in 1978 and worked with her. Andrea told us that Celia had a policy of never excluding a pupil. In the 1990s, Celia taught a Brookside school in Wellington, where she was head of school for maladjusted children. John Latter, a local man who walker who walked his dog near Celia's home of College Farm spoke movingly of her later years. Then the celebrant asked for others in the packed church to give their own thoughts on Celia. Friends of Celia like the anarchist and feminist Rachel Whitaker, Martin Gilbert, and many others spoke following the poem 'Finis' by Walter Savage Landor.
I thought about it, but did not dare comment on the timing of Celia's death on New Year's Day, so close in fact to that of one of her favourite comedians, John Fortune, who died on New Year's Eve.
Saturday, 11 January 2014
Funeral of Celia Otter
CELIA Otter's funeral service will be held at Westhope Green Burial site at 12.00 on Thursday 16th January. There will be a collection plate for International Animal Rescue. Afterwards refreshments will be provided at Westhope college which is close by.
Wednesday, 21 August 2013
Blacklist Latest Reports
1. Press coverage about police collusion with the blacklist:
http://www.hazards.org/blacklistblog/2013/08/19/police-%E2%80%98cover-up%E2%80%99-their-blacklisting-role/
http://union-news.co.uk/2013/08/blacklist-police/
http://darkernet.in/police-colluded-with-blacklisting-agencies-over-70-years/
2. Councils:
Dundee Council passed a motion against using blacklisting firms on Monday night plus....
http://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/news/local/call-for-blacklisting-victims-to-come-forward-1-5393912
3. Crossrail protests about ongoing blacklisting of Frank Morris - including protests in Chicago:
4. Shrewsbury:
5. Australia
Ark Tribe - threatened with jail for organising a safety meeting on a building site
Bob Carnegie - threatened with jail for organising community support for a building site picket
6. Solidarity with blacklisted environmental activists fighting fracking at Balcombe.
Around 400 environmental activists are on the blacklist - almost certainly with information supplied by undercover police. Many construction workers have info on their files about where they supported environmental campaigns too. It's all one struggle.
This week many of these eco-activists were camped at Balcombe to support the local community campaign against fracking by US energy giant Quadzilla. You probably saw Caroline Lucas MP get arrested on the TV news.
Blacklisted workers and supporters were in attendance to show solidarity - big respect to Jim, Steve, Merrick & Fliss for representing: End the Frack List
7. This Saturday night - don't forget this benefit social this Saturday 24th August
Saturday at 19:00
Ruskin House in Croydon, United Kingdom
Blacklist Support Group
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/blacklistSG/
______________________________________________________
The current printed issue of NORTHERN VOICES No.14, is now available for sale - see below. This issue N.V.14 also with an article about Tameside entitled 'Who is in bed with the blacklisters' and an interview with blacklisted electrician George Tapp can still be obtained by writing or contacting the people whose details are below:
Postal subscription: £5 for the next two issues (post included). Cheques made payable to 'Northern Voices' should be sent c/o 52, Todmorden Road, Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.
Tel.: 0161 793 5122.
email: northernvoices@hotmail.com
______________________________________________________
The current printed issue of NORTHERN VOICES No.14, is now available for sale - see below. This issue N.V.14 also with an article about Tameside entitled 'Who is in bed with the blacklisters' and an interview with blacklisted electrician George Tapp can still be obtained by writing or contacting the people whose details are below:
Postal subscription: £5 for the next two issues (post included). Cheques made payable to 'Northern Voices' should be sent c/o 52, Todmorden Road, Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.
Tel.: 0161 793 5122.
email: northernvoices@hotmail.com
Friday, 15 February 2013
Garry Bradford: NAN supporter dies
GARRY Bradford, a loyal supporter of the Northern Anarchist Network in Wellington, Shropshire, died last week in the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford. He attended almost all of the NAN conferences that were held in Wellington over the years, and often paid for the rental of the venue. He came into contact with the local anarchist group through his involvement with OAP group in Wellington.
Tuesday, 4 December 2012
Laurens Otter is well!
A WEEK ago Laurens Otter, the veteran anarchist from Wellington in Shropshire now well into his 80s, returned to his home after a triple-heart bypass. His wife Celia contacted Northern Voices to say the Laurens is well and improving after his operation at the Wolvehampton hospital. All his friends in the Northern Anarchist Network, at Northern Voices, in the Church of England and beyond will wish him and Celia well.
Salud compañeros y buen vida!
Salud compañeros y buen vida!
Saturday, 28 July 2012
Stop Press from the Blacklist Support Group
1. The Observer will be running a major article on the blacklist this Sunday (sorry for the mix up last weekend - it wasn't our fault)
2. We made the last issue of Private Eye page 31 (its the one with Boris and Cameron on the front page).
3. There was a meeting with Christian Khan Solicitors about the complaint against police collusion to the IPCC last week - more news to follow
4. There was a meeting organised by the GMB at Liberty (the human rights organisation) earlier this week - more news to follow
5. New BLACKLISTED T-shirts of various sizes now in stock - they will be handed out free when we turn up for the photo-opportunity outside the High Court later in the year
(its 100% all systems go on this one)
6. Liam Dunne at Guney, Clarrk & Ryan is taking witness statements and particulars of claims over the next few weeks. You know what to do if you haven't sorted things yet.
ldunne@guneyclarkryan.com
7. The attachment is for the UNITE rank n file construction meeting on 11th August in Conway Hall - blacklisting is one of the main items on the agenda. It is the actions of the rank n file sparks during the BESNA dispute that has put blacklisting on the agenda at the construction industry national negotiation for the first time ever.
8. The link below is for the e-petition calling for full disclosure of government documents in the case of the Shrewsbury Pickets. Please support: http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Justice_for_Shrewsbury_Pickets_40_years_on/?efsicbb
2. We made the last issue of Private Eye page 31 (its the one with Boris and Cameron on the front page).
3. There was a meeting with Christian Khan Solicitors about the complaint against police collusion to the IPCC last week - more news to follow
4. There was a meeting organised by the GMB at Liberty (the human rights organisation) earlier this week - more news to follow
5. New BLACKLISTED T-shirts of various sizes now in stock - they will be handed out free when we turn up for the photo-opportunity outside the High Court later in the year
(its 100% all systems go on this one)
6. Liam Dunne at Guney, Clarrk & Ryan is taking witness statements and particulars of claims over the next few weeks. You know what to do if you haven't sorted things yet.
ldunne@guneyclarkryan.com
7. The attachment is for the UNITE rank n file construction meeting on 11th August in Conway Hall - blacklisting is one of the main items on the agenda. It is the actions of the rank n file sparks during the BESNA dispute that has put blacklisting on the agenda at the construction industry national negotiation for the first time ever.
8. The link below is for the e-petition calling for full disclosure of government documents in the case of the Shrewsbury Pickets. Please support: http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Justice_for_Shrewsbury_Pickets_40_years_on/?efsicbb
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
From Family History & Socialism with a Northern Accent to the Conspiracy Against the Person's Act
NORTHERN RADICAL HISTORY NETWORK
THE seats almost ran out at the Town Hall Tavern in Manchester last Saturday for the Northern Radical History Conference. The attendance had a good geographical spread across the North from Cumbria in the North West to Derby and Sheffield in the South East, with Leeds, York, Huddersfield, Liverpool and Shropshire in between, not to mention Greater Manchester and Salford: no-one came from Northumbria alas, unless we count Martin who is in exile from Durham. There was a good mix of political tendencies including the SWP, the Labour Party as well as anarchists and libertarians , and a quarter of those present were women. People sent in over a dozen apologies for none attendance.
As Steve Higginson from Liverpool, who was down to speak on 'Writing on the Wall', had been called to London on union business his spot was filled by Martin Bashford doing an item entitled 'Can Family History be Radical?' Martin claimed that this kind of history could represent 'history from below'. He said that from the 1950s there had been an evolution of family history alongside that of radical history and he referred to Raphael Samuel as hitting on the idea of studying family history and oral history. Martin gave an example of Louise Rawe's study of the 'Match Girl's Strike' as an example of family history and likened it to investigative journalism.
Paul Salveson, as a well known northern historian living in Golcar near Huddersfield, argued that there was a distinctive Northern Socialism which, unlike the London socialists, was less influenced by Marx and more by John Ruskin. Paul said that Northern Socialism owed more to Carlyle, Robert Blatchford, Walt Whitman, Thoreau, Edward Carpenter, the Bolton lad Alan Clarke as well as Ruskin, and he insisted that socialism up here had a more environmental content.
The star turn of the day was Karen Springer (Derby People's History Group) speaking on 'The Alice Wheeldon Case'. This strange First World War case, which seems to have slipped off the political and historical radar, involves a woman of working class origins, Alice Wheeldon, who became a radical and whose family living at 12, Pear Tree Road, Derby, sheltered conscientious objectors in 1916. This ultimately led to her and her kids becoming of interest to both MI5 and the Russian KVD. Alice was ultimately charged under the Conspiracy Against the Person's Act in 1916 and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. This followed a trial involving witnesses like the 'amateur spy', Alex Gordon, who couldn't 'For Reasons of State' be cross-examined by the defence. The prosecution had alleged Alice Wheeldon had acquired a quantity of poison with the intention of assassinating David Lloyd George, the then Prime Minister. She was released from prison in late 1918 and died in early 1919.
THE seats almost ran out at the Town Hall Tavern in Manchester last Saturday for the Northern Radical History Conference. The attendance had a good geographical spread across the North from Cumbria in the North West to Derby and Sheffield in the South East, with Leeds, York, Huddersfield, Liverpool and Shropshire in between, not to mention Greater Manchester and Salford: no-one came from Northumbria alas, unless we count Martin who is in exile from Durham. There was a good mix of political tendencies including the SWP, the Labour Party as well as anarchists and libertarians , and a quarter of those present were women. People sent in over a dozen apologies for none attendance.
As Steve Higginson from Liverpool, who was down to speak on 'Writing on the Wall', had been called to London on union business his spot was filled by Martin Bashford doing an item entitled 'Can Family History be Radical?' Martin claimed that this kind of history could represent 'history from below'. He said that from the 1950s there had been an evolution of family history alongside that of radical history and he referred to Raphael Samuel as hitting on the idea of studying family history and oral history. Martin gave an example of Louise Rawe's study of the 'Match Girl's Strike' as an example of family history and likened it to investigative journalism.
Paul Salveson, as a well known northern historian living in Golcar near Huddersfield, argued that there was a distinctive Northern Socialism which, unlike the London socialists, was less influenced by Marx and more by John Ruskin. Paul said that Northern Socialism owed more to Carlyle, Robert Blatchford, Walt Whitman, Thoreau, Edward Carpenter, the Bolton lad Alan Clarke as well as Ruskin, and he insisted that socialism up here had a more environmental content.
The star turn of the day was Karen Springer (Derby People's History Group) speaking on 'The Alice Wheeldon Case'. This strange First World War case, which seems to have slipped off the political and historical radar, involves a woman of working class origins, Alice Wheeldon, who became a radical and whose family living at 12, Pear Tree Road, Derby, sheltered conscientious objectors in 1916. This ultimately led to her and her kids becoming of interest to both MI5 and the Russian KVD. Alice was ultimately charged under the Conspiracy Against the Person's Act in 1916 and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. This followed a trial involving witnesses like the 'amateur spy', Alex Gordon, who couldn't 'For Reasons of State' be cross-examined by the defence. The prosecution had alleged Alice Wheeldon had acquired a quantity of poison with the intention of assassinating David Lloyd George, the then Prime Minister. She was released from prison in late 1918 and died in early 1919.
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