Our protest is also a challenge to the law that came in last year to criminalise squatting in residential buildings. Section 114 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act threatens homeless people seeking shelter with jail. The law makes it a criminal offence to squat a residential building with the intention of living there and there has been talk by politicians of extending the squatting ban to commercial properties as well. Any extension of the law to criminalise squatting could prevent communities making use of empty residential buildings for community action, such as ours, as well as preventing homeless people from accessing shelter in empty buildings. We are trying to show that people can still use empty residential buildings to protest. When the police visited last night, they acknowledged that we were not committing a criminal offence with our occupation of the building.
Glad to here that someone is doing something about the number of unused buildings in London. Speaking from personal experience the flats they give you when you leave a hostel are worse than the hostel...
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