Squatting protests – live updates

• Protests against criminalisation of squatting expected in London • Campaigners target justice secretary’s home • “Cardboard city” flashmob expected outside DCLG 2.55pm: Journalist Diane Taylor has just sent this through on the protest on top of Ken Clarke’s roof. It seems small, 10 people so far, but they are expected to join up with flashmobbers later in the day: Two of them clambered onto the porch roof of Clarke’s terraced house in a quiet residential street a stone’s throw from parliament just before 1.30pm to draw attention to the government’s plans to criminalise squatters. They unfurled banners declaring ‘housing is a human right’ and served a mock six-month eviction notice on him. There was no sign of any police officers while the activists protested on Clarke’s porch roof. Phoenix, one of the activists involved in today’s protest, is a veteran squatter. He has been involved in hundreds of direct action protests, beginning with the anti-roads protest in Twyford Down in 1992 and has lost count of how many buildings he has scaled to draw attention to a variety of causes. The activists barged into a TV interview with Alastair Darling on College Green and demanded to know whether or not he was backing the government’s proposals to toughen up anti-squatting legislation. He declined to respond. They then visited the recently vacated Lib Dem HQ and made a failed attempt to squat it. “It’s now an empty property. It would make a perfect community centre,” said Phoenix. 2.33pm: We’re already getting a report from journalist Diane Taylor that activists have target the house of justice secretary Ken Clarke. They climbed on to his roof of his house in Oval an hour-and-a-half ago with one activist giving him a mocked up six month eviction notice.The crowd has now moved on to another target and it was all over very quickly. A full update and pictures are expected soon. 2.06pm: Welcome this afternoon to our live blog on housing protests which are due to take place around London today. We understand that various campaign groups are going to hold protests outside of government buildings including the Department of Communities and Local Government which has responsibility for housing. It’s still a little hush hush but we will update as events come through. They are making noise about a number of issues. The first is the imminent eviction of Dale Farm in Essex in which travellers are expected to be removed in the coming week from a plot of land which they own but do not have planning permission to erect dwellings on. The second issue is the criminalisation of squatting . After after a spate of vacant central London town houses were squatted, including that of Guy Ritchie , the justice secretary Ken Clarke, along with housing minister Grant Schapps decided to make squatting a criminal offence. Currently if you enter a house which has been abandoned and unsecured and claim it as your abode, it is treated by courts as a civil offence. The third issue is that of council’s planned evictions of tenants whose family members were involved in last August’s riots. The first known example of this was Wandsworth council , in London who have already served one family with a notice of planned eviction. And finally, there are of course the cuts to housing benefits. What has most riled activists are the shift from so called subsidised rents which housing associations currently provided when compared to the full market value. The £500 a week housing benefit cap is also a source of concern in London where rent is especially high. Stay tuned for further updates this afternoon. Housing Housing benefit Communities Crime Protest Dale Farm Shiv Malik guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 15, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.