Eco-Village Resists Eviction

According to bailiffs, private property developers at Runnymede campus are attempting to take out a new injunction against the ‘Diggers 2012’, a collective of would-be eco villagers who have been camping on the site for more than a month. The injunction sought would criminalise trespass, combining an eviction order with powers of arrest.

The Diggers website states that their intention was, and is, “to make the waste land grow”. Their current encampment is tucked into an area of abandoned woodland out of sight of the derelict university buildings of the campus.

“If this new kind of injunction is enacted it would allow the landowner to use taxpayer funded police officers as a private army to prevent and punish any further trespass,” explained one of the Diggers. “But, we’re hoping that the process of obtaining and enacting any such injunction will be slow because the authorities are overstretched dealing with the Olympics”.

Inhabitants of the Diggers’ camp have been evicted three times recently, each time resisting peacefully. Some eco-villagers climbed into the rafters of their wooden ‘longhouse’ to evade bailiffs, while others played for time by laboriously doing “emergency eviction washing up”. Bailiffs, supported by police, carried those they could catch away from the longhouse and dumped them further down the hill on National Trust land. The Diggers returned each time before the hearth went cold, promptly rekindling their campfire and resuming work. A compost toilet, a permaculture garden and an extension to the longhouse are under construction.

Despite the threat of eviction, the Diggers have continued hosting picnics and discussions at the Magna Carta memorial in Runnymede Park every Saturday afternoon. Local residents, Occupy supporters and environmentalists including journalist George Monbiot have visited the camp and attended workshops in traditional crafts such as charcoal making, pottery, green wood carving, wild food foraging and timber frame building.

One of the Diggers, Simon Moore, said: “There’s an abundance of disused privately owned land that’s perfectly suitable for eco villages.” In what could be construed as a call to the land, Simon suggests that “As the false economy implodes it’s possible we’ll be seeing lots more Diggers-style villages springing up across the country, challenging the hegemony of the big landowners and the law.”

By Emma Fordham