Register here - as a registered user you get more features and fewer ads.
Eco warriors take to trees to fight quarry
Mon 29 March, 2004 22:00
By Meg Clothier
NINE LADIES' CAMP (Reuters) - Bill has swapped his homemade caravan complete with blue polythene portico and anti-rat defences for a house, accessible only by rope walkway, nestled in a tree on a muddy Derbyshire hillside.
This week Bill, who preferred not to give his second name, and other eco warriors are fine-tuning their anti-bailiff defences in the Peak District, fearing an eviction order could turn them off the land and the land into a quarry.
Leaseholder Stancliffe Stone Company is planning to re-open the Endcliffe and Lees Cross quarries after it has finalised discussions with the Peak District National Park Authority.
In anticipation, the band of around fifty protesters, some resident since 1999, have been dreaming up schemes to prevent them being thrown off the site, which is near the Bronze Age Nine Ladies stone circle and several ancient burial mounds.
As well as his treehouse, Bill has worked on what is acknowledged as the camp's piece de resistance -- a 'skyraft'.
"I'd say it's totally unique. Nothing like this has been done before," he told Reuters.
The skyraft has three tiers, with the lowest platform swinging some 60 feet above the floor of a ravine. Lengths of rope strapped to trees on the surrounding slopes hold it in place. People can only reach the raft by shuffling along ropes with nothing between them and the valley floor.
"I reckon they're going to have a lot of difficulty getting us off that," Bill said.
"It's beautiful here. It would be amazing to be able to come here with your kids and say, ?We did this. If it hadn't been for us, this would be a big hole in the ground'," he added.
Scattered over the 32 acres are around 30 other aerial contraptions and the eco warriors have dug tunnels underground as another line of defence.
"They will get us out eventually. But it will take them a long time and cost them millions and millions. We'll stay here until the last baked bean is finished -- and we've got a lot of baked beans. It'll bring them a lot of bad PR," 42-year-old protester Ruth Franklin said.
Stancliffe Managing Director Brian Wallace hoped the stand-off would not end in eviction, but said it was a possible outcome.
"They're there and we'd rather they weren't but we will carry on our business," he told Reuters. The Matlock-based company, a subsidiary of Marshalls, employs 68 people in the area and has been working there since the mid-1800s, he said.
Elsewhere Syd "Slayer" has built a corrugated iron tower on top of a tee-pee and nearby Andy has suspended Syd's old family caravan, minus axle and wheels, between half a dozen trees.
"I could wait out a siege for more than a week, but less than a year," Syd said. "And if it does really kick off we can get into tunnels and keep them at bay," he added.
While they wait for the dispute to come to a head, Syd is considering hoisting a bench and an umbrella onto the tower roof.
"It would make a great beer garden," he said.
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road