City of London Renews Eviction Plans

One month since the OccupyLSX occupation of St Paul’s began, eviction threats from the City of London Corporation have resurfaced.

The City today voted to continue with legal action to clear the camp around St Paul’s Cathedral after occupiers called for transparency within the City.

The City said it would issue an eviction notice to campers on Wednesday telling them to leave within 24 hours.

This threat comes two weeks after the City decided to hold off on legal action against the camp, and had meet with protesters where representatives told occupiers they needed to scale back the tents and agree to leave before the end of the year.

However, at St Paul’s General Assemblies campers voiced their determination to stay on in solidarity with other global occupations.

In response to the City’s ultimatum last week, occupiers told the City what it would take for them to make any further decisions.

It issued three demands; for the City to publish, in full, year-by-year breakdowns of the City cash account, future and historic, that the City be subject to the Freedom of Information Act, and thirdly, it wanted a detail of all advocacy undertaken on behalf of the banking and finance industries, since the 2008 financial crash.

In a statement, occupiers said “We cannot negotiate with such an institution without undermining our sister occupations across the globe, who are being violently oppressed by authorities with the same interests as the City of London Corporation.”

Policy Chairman of the City of London Corporation, Stuart Fraser, said the City was going nowhere with negotiations with the occupation.

‘We paused legal action for two weeks for talks with those in the camp on how to shrink the extent of the tents and to set a departure date – but got nowhere. So, sadly, now they have rejected a reasonable offer to let them stay until the New Year, it’s got to be the courts. We’d still like to sort this without court action but from now on we will have to have any talks in parallel with court action – not instead.’

He said the City was concerned about late-night drinking and mess generated at the camp, and it was ”determined” to see eviction action through.

By Stacey Knott