Ramparts, one of London’s longest running social centres, was finally evicted in the early morning on Thursday 15th October after battling to remain open for the last two years.

Bailiffs along with 45 police officers raided the building in the run-down garment manufacturing area of the East End at 5.30am, evicting the occupants before securing the premises. The adjacent houses which were being used as living space were also evicted.

The place was originally set up by political activists as a way of offering a non-commercial political and social environment and has over the years become a cultural institution and a beacon for radicals and activists in the capital, holding many events, meetings and raising money through benefit nights for countless political causes ranging from anarchist prisoner support to No Borders, anti-fascist and climate action events, with many thousands enjoying the hospitality over the years. Recently it had been used as meeting and convergence space for G20 protests, Dsei and Climate Camp and during the summer it was used as crash space for 70 visiting Bolivian activists.

The building, previously a derelict Islamic girls school, was originally occupied in 2004 and opened up as a community and activist resource.
It is not unlawful to squat buildings in the UK as long as no crime is committed gaining access to the property. Usually squatted buildings are reclaimed through the civil courts by the owners which give them a short and unpredictable life expectancy of six months or less.

The owners of the building were granted a possession order on 3rd January 2008, but it has taken almost two years for bailiffs to repossess the property despite several previous eviction attempts successfully resisted by Ramparts.

It’s estimated there are over 82,000 empty homes in London with a rising homeless population of 20,000 people, not including the hidden homeless.

London’s continued housing crisis was given another blow the day after on Friday 16th as Mayor Boris Johnson revealed his plans for future housing in London.

In a short and largely ignored press conference, the deputy mayor gave a breakdown of Johnson’s proposals, notionally, called The London Plan, which is to move away from the previous Mayor’s target of 50% ‘affordable’ homes on each estate, to a capital-wide target of just 13,000 homes subsidised by the state out of the predicted 333,800 homes to be built by 2031. If implemented, the policy will open the door to a return to all-private and all-subsidised estates and push ordinary people further and further out of London by crippling affordable house prices across the capital.