Different groups spend much of their time in retrospective campaigning to stop this or that development. Often because another part of our disappearing natural wealth is threatened and too few people cared to take action early enough. So we get TV pictures of protesters up trees whilst the police, industrialists and politicians talk about the cost to the country of the action as if the protesters were committing treason.

Politicians and business people are great at giving lip service to the need for sustainability yet are apparently unwilling to take the actions necessary to move towards it.... It is only the actions of politicians that have the means to pass laws controlling the boundaries of business...... And it is increasingly only multinational or very large business that controls the resources which can effect change on the scale necessary.

It is generally excepted that much environmental destruction is caused directly or indirectly by the way we globally consume resources. The cities of the world are the places with the highest resource and energy consumption. If unchecked unwise lifestyles will sooner or later lead to more and more global crisis, getting closer and closer to the homes of even the very rich. As societies and individuals we must produce huge changes in patterns of consumption.

In urban areas these changes could come in the form of developments which are more people centred, that encourage the use of sustainable transport and energy systems, the recycling of materials and that reduce the costs of living to communities by cycling more of their wealth within themselves and therefore stop it disappearing into the global money market upon which it needs to be replaced by wages from artificial jobs which only increase consumption. The planning system allows for this to happen. But it is so often manipulated by land owners and developers who's interests are simply to make the largest profits possible.

This is why The Land Is Ours campaign's occupation of a derelict urban site highlighted so well the farcical nature of the current planning and economic systems and the lack of real will within influential companies to put sustainable ideas into practice..... To occupy a site with nothing of interest to anyone on it, that had been left empty and inaccessible for many years due to the fact that the owners simply wished to make a profit from it was a great idea..... That the developers who where employed had chosen to try and force planning permission through for an unwanted carpark and supermarket, the cheapest type of things to build for the largest returns, brilliant....The fact that the site was in a rare, prime riverside location in a European capital city and hence should be the perfect place in which to demonstrate the ideas of forward thinking sustainable urban development, an opportunity which had been ignored by the council planners, the city planners, the owners and the developers, Genius. After all it is so much easier to carry on doing what you have always done.

There are many other people who have chosen to have lifestyles which put into practice the ideas of sustainable living. By their very nature these low income, high quality lifestyles need the attention and time of the folk involved which often means they can give less time to long term occupations and protests than they would wish. People could plan to be involved in this protest for a short period of time and be seen to be supporting a change in attitudes towards urban development and the manipulation of peoples possible futures which are so often dictated by the short sighted actions of those who hold the financial power for change in our cities.

I decided to help out..... After the initial meetings, publicised in newspapers, groups of people willing to take on various tasks had formed. I was to help with the buildings and materials gathering. There were about ten of us working on this when we could between work and other commitments. Different groups identified their needs, Jacqueline with her van, Brendan myself and others were out searching for sources of useful things as requested. The date was set for the occupation and I had a vague idea of the sorts of materials that could be found and might be useful. The material gathering team had drop off points around the city and folk were out scanning the streets from the top decks of buses looking for piles of waste wood from demolitions.

We needed to build a big structure as a focus for the village. It was agreed to build a round house to take two hundred people. A simple sketch and a little thought and I had a list of timber sizes and lengths we were looking for and fixings we would need to hold it together safely. The building had to be flexible and able to be erected on hard or soft land as we still didn't know were we were going. Other buildings would have to be built from whatever was available. There was very little money to be spent, most of that would go on transport and food, some on the compost and materials for the gardens.

I was evicted from the flat I had been squatting with three friends, we had just started decorating. This gave me more opportunity to try new bus routes to work. Another friend offered the floor of a spare room, whilst moving our stuff round in a camper van the engine caught fire under our belongings. The fire extinguisher from an Indian takeaway saved the day, the omens were good, there were three weeks to go.

The wood for the roundhouse was finally located, Brendan had been bringing in bits from a mysterious source but there wasn't enough. Then on a bus up the A40 I spotted it, a huge pile from the demolition of the houses to widen the road. A quick visit from Jacqueline and I, some negotiations with the contractors and we had a truck load delivered to our storage space.

We were still faced with a transport problem. I have not owned a vehicle for four years and there was only one, very busy, van between us and the piles for collection were growing, skips were going unemptied. Then late one evening the phone rang "I hear you need a van ?" a cheery voice said " If you can get to Norfolk its all yours for a few weeks. My name's Ken." This was a problem, I was one of the few people that could drive but I was working every day and most of the other time was tied up with sorting out the materials for possible building work and preparing the timber for the roundhouse. I phoned try and get him to drive over to London, a yo-yo of telephone conversations followed, at last two days later it was resolved. Ken would come to help in a few days time. I slept well that night..... until the phone rang at four in the morning. It was Ken back from a night out celebrating his birthday, drunk and apologetically dialing the wrong number. Who was this weird guy?

In the next few days I watched our piles of tat grow in our central storage. There was now a team of us working on the wood, Steve, Brendan, Gary, Nick and I sawing, shaping and piling a few hours here a few hours there. Yurt frames began to take shape as Anja provided the instructions to us. Spirits were high but there was no where near enough materials to provide shelter for the hundreds of people expected and to deal with their waste. Jacqueline's van was increasingly busy with foo d and gardening materials. She was constantly collecting at any free moment in her own busy life. Piles of pallets and plastic barrels for bins were appearing day by day.

Ken arrived bringing energy and enthusiasm he was the one of the many great people I would meet in the next few months. With the increased capacity to shift things the piles increased. Old sleepers arrived, plastic sheet from scaffold companies around the city, more pallets, plywood, guttering and pipe for the gardens. At last I felt we had what we needed to be sure the first few days would be constructive. Other people started to arrive with their contributions. The truck and coaches were arranged for moving everything in to the site. I had arranged the occupation week off work and was happy things were going to plan.

May 4th arrived and many other people gathered at the battlebridge. The truck was carefully loaded with all the materials for the roundhouse, gardens and the most essential composting toilets, the two vans were full to their weight limits with food, yurts, plastic sheet, tools and a scaffold tower. Travellers vehicles took still more things. There was still piles to be moved but they would have to wait for a second journey assuming we got in to the site.... Wherever it was.

The material gatherers retired to the pub for a well earned rest. I just had to sleep, get up and find the meeting place on time in the morning.

When I arrived at the small green in Hammersmith the next morning there were hundreds of people milling around. What was happening? Where were we going? Who knew what coach to get on? Portable phones were stuck to ears and some sort of raffle was going on. It turned out this was tickets for the coaches. Slowly they were filling, but where was the truck with the materials in that I was supposed to get a lift in? Had the police decided to stop it as they had with other demonstrations in the past?, surely not....
At last a phone rang, it was just coming down the road, London's great road network was just working as normal.

The convoy moved off, leaving still more people for second coach journeys. I could see bicycles moving amongst the traffic, waving at the coaches, excited faces peered through windows smiling. Passers by looked on, something not quite normal was going on. The vehicles headed south. I was apprehensive but excited, it was happening.... I was about to suffer a shock.

We moved through Hammersmith, down towards the river and into Putney across the bridge. This was all familiar to me as I worked on a contract for the local council here. The coaches turned east along the south of the river, I began to have an uneasy feeling about possible destinations. Sure enough my wors t fears were about to be confirmed. Wandsworth bridge appeared in front of us. As we pulled onto the roundabout I could see the coaches parked in front of the site and people getting out. We were waved past in the truck and into the gateway. Excited, smiling people looked up at the cab directing us on, happy laughter rose above the noise of the passing traffic... Shit, I thought, I can see the office from here.

There was no time now to dwell on this. A brief welcome to the site and a meeting time was set. The back of the truck was opened and the unloading began. Piles of different timbers and materials that had taken three weeks to accumulate were reformed in seconds by masses of willing hands. I was kept busy making sure colour coded parts were all stacked together, meanwhile all around many more people were exploring the site. It was quite beautiful, behind the timber hoarding it had been forgotten and the scrubland was dotted with trees, shrubs and flowers almost like a secret garden. There was a sense of peace there, hidden from the busy road with the sounds of the river to one side. In the weeks to come I would often find this calm after the chaos of the city.

Unloading over, there was a little time before the meeting to find a place for the roundhouse. I thought that there was to be a short discussion about where to erect the different structures. B ut as I looked for the place that felt best to focus the village on I could see a huge dome already rising above the heads of it's builders. Meantime Steve, Gary and I found our spot. It was large enough for the roundhouse and left space all around for an outer circle of homes. There was a space to the west which was grassy and raised up perfect for watching a play or band in the roundhouse. I guestimated where the centre pole should go and scratched a cross in the ground.

The meeting started, various points were raised, where campers should pitch tents, which areas were to be left for wild life, where was potentially dangerous, phone locations for emergencies. There was a great level of excitement, we were here and in, the police had visited and had no problem, the site was owned by Guinness and was due to become a carpark and supermarket but the developers couldn't get planning permission and were taking it to a public enquiry. This was good news for me. If the site had been owned by the council I would have had big problems, If it had been granted planning permission I would also have a lot of explaining to do on the way to the dole office. I still had to go work in a weeks time where I was sure my colleagues would be very interested in what was going on.

In retrospect I think that more time should have been given from the start to laying out the site. There was a great momentum from different groups of people who all wanted to get on with erecting buildings and laying out gardens. But as most of the longer term dwellings had yet to be built and at this stage few people knew if they would be staying for longer than a week things just kept appearing here and there. In the longer term this was to mean that there was too much distance between different parts of the site and therefore it would be harder to keep an eye on everything and people would not be living or working so closely together.

Back at the roundhouse site we began to dig the hole for the central post, the only bit which needed to go into the ground. Amazingly we had picked a point between two huge chunks of concrete a foot from each other with another piece about four foot down making the perfect foundation. Soon the post was up and by the end of the day the central section of the building was nearing completion. Steve and I spent much of the next three days working with a small group to get the rest of the frame up. Plywood was cut and nailed on the central roof and a tarpaulin formed temporary walls. Old light fittings found in Ken's van were nailed to four of the eight posts and filled w ith candles. As the sun set over Wandsworth bridge directly in front of the one open side it cast a golden light into the building. To me it took on the air of a temple, peaceful and calm with people sitting happily talking up plans for the rest of the site, playing music and reading poetry.

The outer section began to appear, eleven more posts with beams and rafters leaving only the space where the sun came through in the evenings. From the roof there was a great view of the rest of the site. A fair few people had left after the bank holiday Monday but more were arriving every day drawn by the TV and newspaper coverage. There were Yurts, benders, tents, buses and wooden frames for houses. People carrying gardening equipment, plants and children. TV cameras and journalists appeared as if by magic out of bushes grabbing anyone passing. I began to feel a little frustrated by the lack of privacy and the constant questioning. Talking to other people they were having the same experiences, in the middle of carrying a large piece of wood from the wood pile or wheeling a barrow full of soil to a garden someone would stand in front of you and ask "what are you doing?" as if it wasn't obvious.

I had ventured into the council office's on the Tuesday to confess my involvement in the occupation and to test the water amongst the staff. I believed in my motiva tions for being part of the protest but still had a strong responsibility to the people of the borough and to my colleagues who had given me their trust and whom spent their time working hard to provide services to the people of Wandsworth. I didn't want them to feel I was somehow doing something which would harm the people of the borough. Especially when my motives were to draw attention to the manipulation of local council's by big businesses which so often happens, putting profits in front of community and more and more creating a world in their own image which the rest of us have to live with.

Things were OK. The ruling conservative councillors (who had been busy selling off parks and graveyards for building on ) were not very happy to say the least. However my bosses felt there was no conflict of interest as it was private land. Many council workers were enjoying seeing the councillors getting wound up and finding the whole thing very amusing. I still had a job to go .....

Things on the site buzzed on. There was a shortage of plywood for the walls of the roundhouse. Early morning trips to local waste disposal sites soon turned up the required wood. Ken and I would set off before the city had woken and use the empty roads to do a round trip taking in a load of skips and three waste sites. Later the roads were a nightmare and trips could take hours. The local DIY superstore proved to have friendly managers and big skips.

Unlike the next door building site. The £150,000 to £450,000 flats being built by the river were obviously going to benefit many of the locals! Especially the (not) local developer (offices in the city, investments world-wide), the multinational contractor, the labourers (very few of which turned out to be local) and the local prospective Tory councillor who would gain some wealthier residents in this generally poor part of the Borough. The site manager refused to let us take the waste wood from the skips, it being much more useful in landfill sites. Fortunately the night watchman was much more reasonable.

I now had time to work on a home for myself. I had been to the meetings held for people who might want to stay on after the protest finished, I was homeless, though with the security of friends and family to stay with if I needed to. The site was local to my work and my contract had some time to run. I am not fond of cities but as I had planned to be around until my job finished and as I had come to feel a responsibility for the local area through my work I decided I would stay. I found some pine trunks which had come from near Newbury and looked around for other materials, there were a few pallets. Later that day the frame had taken shape. It was to be a small pyramid with two floors. The design was simply the easiest way of using the materials lying around. The bed space upstairs was small and could be insulated easily, the downstairs was big enough to work and live in. Not the greatest flat in London but the rent was cheap and the garden magnificent.

I was waking early with the first light and watching the river and the wildlife on the site. Foxes came and went, birds sang and butterflies danced. I sat one morning in the compost toilets taking a morning dump with the sunlight filtering through the plastic walls along with distant city noises. It was more than halfway though the week and I was happy with the progress. Still seated I pulled the plastic aside to watch the Butterflies in the Buddlia and found the lens of a video camera and the channel four film crew smiling at me "could you tell us what you are doing now"..... It sort of summed up much of the first week.

Another thing that stood out was the failure of much of the media to realise that what they were watching was people who were used to living a certain way, co-operatively instead of competitively, spontaneously meeting and organising what to do next based on immediate resources and a desire to communicate and draw from our collective knowledge. I remember one early article which said "the protesters met and organisers read prepared speeches" what actually happened was we met and people stood up and talked as they thought necessary at the time.

On the Friday night I left and took a bus to Oxford to draw a plan of the site on a friend's computer. I worked through the night to prepare a plan of how the site could possibly develop in the future with workshops and homes for local people, riverside cafes, a circular bus route and recreational spaces. It was intended to stimulate discussion amongst local people who were invited to an open day on the Saturday.

What we had created was a low impact temporary settlement. I thought to create a sustainable, ecological urban development needed a realistic view that only a minority of people would be content to live for long on the site as it had become. For me the main point was to get people thinking of ways to use this valuable space for the benefit of as many people as possible in ways that demonstrated the accepted ideas for planning sustainable cities: renewable energy generation (we had obtained a small wind generator for the site), public transport favoured over the private car, easy pedestrian and cycle access and buildings that were built as much as possible by those who were to live in them (making them cheaper, creating a sense of community by working together, providing work and cycling as much finance as possible back into the local econom y).

I returned on Saturday lunch time to find a transformation. The wind generator span on the roof of the roundhouse above solar panels, the walls were finished, thin branches formed patterns in the windows and more candle holders made from reclaimed copper pipe spiralled around the central post. Gardens were full of plants and seedlings had already begun to sprout. The irrigation system for the gardens was working. Locals wandered around the site and a party spirit was building up. That evening was the high point of the occupation for me. The efforts of so many different people had come together and created a truly unique place in the heart of a city. Bands played late into the night as two hundred people danced inside the roundhouse.

All that remained to do on the Sunday was to fit a lock to the small gate which had been chosen as the future entrance and present the keys to the people who had decided to stay on and the local people who had supported the occupation and were to hopefully become part of any future community. Steve and I got on with it finishing minutes before the ceremony.

I was apprehensive about the future. I was homeless, living on the site would be insecure and I couldn't really expect to have many valuable belongings. Things had been going missing already, whilst many of the local children found the site fascinating some fou nd it an easy place to nick things from. This had however had the interesting effect of drastically cutting crime and vandalism on the local estates. Worst of all I realised that many of the wonderful people whom I'd lived and worked with through the week would now be going back home. I also had to go work.

A new time was about to start and after the highs of the week and the energy and expectations that had been created it would be hard to hang on to the sense of community which had grown. Already people were arriving who had had no part in creating the space. They were homeless and needed a place to be, they were also unaware of some of the motivations behind the protest. They were joining those of us that wanted to stay, many who were also homeless but had shared experiences together.

It had always been known that after the protest week the village created would be left to those who wished to live there and would provide a place for the city's homeless. It would also be important to maintain the good relationship with the locals that had been developed. It was a big thing to ask of the residents, after all "the land is ours" so how do you ask someone to respect a place and what do you do when they refuse to do so?

Those of us who had decided to stay had drawn up a list of things we felt should be respected by ourselves and new arrivals. Many people didn't want to impose rules and regulations on themselves, I felt and do still feel that boundaries have to be set for communities to live together. They have to deal with how you intend to live around each other and how you will treat the world you live in. They provide a basis upon which to deal with conflicts that may arise. Maybe one of the problems that our society faces now is that its laws have evolved over long timescales and too much emphasis is now placed on those that focus on restricting individual freedoms and not enough on those that protecting what is there for us all from the interests of more powerful organisations. This has led to a widespread disrespect for all boundaries and a loss of recognition of why they were there in the first place. When governments and companies or their representatives can seemingly do what they wish, changing the rules if they don't suit them why shouldn't an individual?

At the end of the second week I left for two days to have a break and think about the future. When I returned there was a huge difference about the place, so many familiar faces were gone strangers sat around the fire with cans of beer. I felt lost and hurt in some way, as if you had returned home to find your family had undergone a transformation. It was unfair of me to feel this, many of the people there were fine just unkno wn at the time. It was the change from hundreds of people buzzing with enthusiasm to sixty trying to figure out what to do now that really caused this uncomfortable sensation.

There were still about thirty people from the first few weeks and I soon settled down. I worked for two or three days a week and spent the rest of the time working on projects for the site or getting on with the rest of my life. The immediate problems now were the threat of eviction, what to do about the public enquiry into Safeway and Guinness's unpopular plans for the site, how to encourage and present alternative plans for the site and how to continue to create a good place to live amongst all these pressures. The eviction hearings were out of my hands. The advisory service for squatters was dealing with our defence as best it could.

I could go and meet with Guinness, which small parties of us did on three or four occasions. At these meetings I tried my best to communicate to their representatives the potential benefits of adopting a sustainable green development strategy for the site. Imagine one of the largest green developments of any major European capital, making a truly positive contribution to altering the face of our cities. Something politicians and various international bodies assure us is vital for the future.

Guinness pride themselves as a company on their env ironmental record. Indeed they have helped many worthwhile causes and support the Guinness housing trust. Their products whilst being mainly legal drugs are less harmful in production than many other industries. However they suffer from the same, I believe, mistaken viewpoint that afflicts so many multinational companies caught up in their own financial momentum; That by encouraging people to consume more and more of their products and buying up and stamping out smaller competitors fuelling the profits for their shareholders, whilst giving a little to charities, they are somehow helping the world. As opposed to increasing the already unsustainable levels of consumption in the developed world and stopping badly needed finance from cycling in local economies. They didn't want to listen. As one of their directors said to me, typifying the attitudes of big business globally "We abdicated responsibility for the site in 1989 when we turned it over to the developers." To them it represented nothing more than an investment with a better rate of return than a bank.

I could also help in the presentation of objections to the government inspector at the planning public enquiry. There were already five local groups who objected to the proposals as well as the council planning committee who had already rejected two schemes. A small group of us formed and started to examine the plans. We drew upon the governments planning policy guidance notes (PPG) which are published under code numbers and titles, PPG7 for example deals with development in rural areas. There was also special guidance for Thameside development and the council's own Local plan.

It is useless to object to any planning application on the grounds that you don't like it. For an objection to be successful you must prove harm will come from the proposal based upon the guidance given in PPG's and a few other official documents. Planning is a complex and seemingly dull area of bureaucracy and it is no surpass that so many unwelcome schemes get permission when large companies can employ specialists to force them through. Whilst most people objecting will be facing the system for the first time and be lost in a maze of paperwork. I had never been involved firsthand in any of this stuff, though I had some idea of the process. To be honest it did my head in.

Fortunately other people had more experience and provided guidance. I spent the evenings either in the local pub using the light to read endless dull documents to counter the proposed traffic scheme or at friend's houses typing my proof of evidence. According to Safeway's engineers 700 new carparking spaces were not going to encourage more traffic in the area nor make the already dangerous roads worse. I asked traffic engineer friends for advice and used my own judgement to represent Safeway's own traffic surveys in a less rosy light. At the same time I helped prepared our own planning application for the site which we finally presented on the day the enquiry opened. I was busy at work and becoming more tired due to the amount I had taken on.

The enquiry was to last for two weeks. I attended nearly every day with a few other people, except when I had to work. Finally my turn to give evidence came. I read the summary I had prepared and sat waiting to be cross examined by Safeway's lawyer. It was thankfully short, he questioned my qualifications. I wasn't a pure traffic engineer. Fortunately I was sure of the validity of my arguments and managed to give firm answers to his questions. I don't know how worried I looked. Mostly I felt angry that people like him are paid huge amounts by companies to argue for the most harmful of developments whilst the public usually have to rely on volunteers or overworked council officials. The true meaning of "the land is ours" for me is our right to have our voices heard and to be represented on an equal footing to the developers and planning specialists. We are all guardians of our country and its future should not be held in the hands of those who can be bought.

We produced flyers to encourage local people to come and have their say. Several hundred turned up for the special session which we persuaded the inspector to hold in a local church hall and I got to present a petition against the supermarket plan signed by several thousand more. This was an uplifting evening for me as I had started to doubt if people could be bothered to try and express their views. Most I had talked to didn't know they could influence decisions or were too busy trying to get by, caught up in the struggles of their own lives. Some simply didn't give a shit. Many did however, people I had never seen were there to reject the plans and ask for better schemes to be considered.

As I write this I have no idea if we succeeded to block the proposal as the inspector has yet to report. If we did then for me the occupation did something for the people of Wandsworth as well as the first week's protest had done something to highlight the many abuses of our shared land by faceless profit hungry organisations. Our planning application was rejected by the council.

Back on the site many people had litt le idea what was going on. Some were alienated by the idea of the communal meetings so didn't come. Others were far to drunk to care. Some had other problems of their own. As more of London's homeless found the site or were sent by churches or shelters so the hardships of living there had increased. Most of my friends from the first weeks were trying to get on with building homes and gardens. Many supporters from all over the country came to visit and help during the days. But increasingly I came to feel we were being overwhelmed by the needs of those less able or unwilling to sort themselves out. At night the local drunks would come to hang out, a few folk had serious drug problems, some had mental health problems.... I finally found time to finish my home.

Basically we were facing the same problems as much of society, more concentrated in the cities and more so on the streets. We had failed to stop people who would not or could not respect the place or themselves from coming in and there were too few with the skills or the energy to confront it. It was obvious by the praise from visitors that this was not so obvious from the outside. Maybe I was simply too sensitive about my home and ideals. There were certainly still lots of good times and on the whole it was amazing how well a large group of strangers were getting on in hard circumstances... Those of us who cared for the site and had invested time in it, including many of the later arrivals, were increasingly tense. The threat of eviction was constantly there and we had no more legal avenues left. The fact was many people now on the site didn't seem to care about this. They had to many problems of their own and being moved on was a normal part of existence. The late night visitors didn't care anyway as it was just another place to hang around when it was gone they could find another.

For me communicating with the local people and getting them to participate in the future of the site was the only way I had ever seen to take the protest further and to provide any possible security to those who wanted to stay on. I was increasingly finding it frustrating that so many site residents took no interest in welcoming visitors or communicating with the local people. Even so there were still a core of regular visitors from the local estates some of whom worked on improving the site some who used it as a place for recreation. The weekly "open" days usually went well and the arts and music provided much needed energy to those who were struggling behind the scenes to tidy up before the events.

For me though it was becoming harder to face both the supporters from off site and those who were working so hard within it. My contract had finished and I had to come to terms with my own needs and desires. On the positive side there had been no eviction despite having lost the court battle. There were new people arriving who wanted to make the place work. There was a diverse community forming on the land. A developer had expressed interest in buying the site for housing and small business. Though I was unsure if he truly appreciated sustainable principles he was at least listening. I had some part time work and could get another contract if I wanted to, though this would be in another part of the city. I had a home I was happy to live in and good friends on the site and elsewhere in the city.

On the down side I felt that after the excitement of the protest and the enquiry many local people had increasingly been alienated by the behaviour of some people. There was an increased level of conflict between those who's interests were a little broader than self and those who just wanted a fire and a beer. Occasional fights had broken out between drunks. My home had been broken into by one of the local teenagers and a friend and I had lost some belongings. Losing the stuff was OK but the fact that It was so easy to do and that most of the locals knew those of us living there had very little was upsetting.

Mainly I had to recognise that I have a deep dislike for city life and that long-term I had no intenti on of staying there. This led to me being unwilling to forcefully express my opinions to the other residents who were happy to live within the city. If I was not to be a part of the place whatever the future held then I could only offer advice and accept the decisions of others. Worst of all I could no longer face the supporters and friends who wanted so much for the place and saw the good things that were going on as I was unsure if enough residents were now still aware of the reason the site existed. I had no energy left to confront the selfish elements of our community who were abusing the good will of the local people and all those who had put so much effort into creating the place to start with. Thankfully others did.

Kate a friend who had helped at the start of the occupation had asked Mike Feingold a top permaculture teacher to visit and hold a two day workshop. This was a great event. There were a fair number of people who had been continuing to practice the techniques of permaculture on the site since the first protest week. Many others who had arrived had little idea of green sustainable lifestyles and had been mainly unwilling (or unable) to listen to those of us who did. Visitors had received as much information as they wanted but I think many of the new residents thought that the people they met when they arrived were just hanging around and didn't have any worthwhile knowledge to share. Or they felt threatened by anyone who wanted to discuss ways of living with them. Mike, being an "expert" was listened to by more people and it was incredible how talking stopped, faces turned and eyes lit up as he explained how people all over the world have taken wasted land and a long term way of thinking and turned them into an ecological livelihood. The silence followed by gasps that greeted his slides of places transformed not by Governments, developers and big business but by people who worked together for a sustainable green future was for me the perfect communication of the vision so many people had shown during the first week.

Several more weeks passed. The stress to all of not knowing if or when we were to be evicted showed. Occasionally tempers frayed. I withdrew more from active involvement in the social life of the site. I was exhausted and only wanted to spend my time with friends. I was also increasingly unhealthy and run down. Whereas in the past I had enjoyed running around the place helping to build new things now I mainly wanted to be left alone or with friends who bounced back the energy I shared with them. I still couldn't decide if I wanted to stay or leave. I had shared so much with so many wonderful people who were still there and felt unable to leave those I cared for who had given me so much. Finally I left for a break to decide my future plans. I wasn't going to live on the site again.

I returned for a few days after two weeks and was glad to see friends getting on with life and to be able to view the site from a different perspective. However for me it was enough, the place felt better than I remembered but I had decided to put my efforts into somewhere that had more chance of being there in ten or a hundred years time where the weight of corporate finance was less likely to march the bailiffs in to further increase their profits. For me the site had failed to have a collective vision of its future that was strong enough to move towards.

Land rights and land use issues command a lot of attention when they occur in other countries. Their effects on the environment are noted and publicised. In the South American rainforests, mining, fossil fuel exploration and the actions of homeless people driven off their land into the forest by huge landowners have long been recognised by large sections of the public in Europe as damaging to the environment. People are horrified to hear of the corruption and manipulation of legal processes which goes on in the name of business and economics.

Why then do we allow (often the same) large wealthy organisations to control and manipulate land use in our own countries ? Maybe because the inequities in the distribution of wealth between very rich and poor are less obvious here, there are fewer very poor and there is a welfare system to assist those at the bottom of the pile which blurs the edges of the problem. Maybe because it is hundreds of years since the land here was divided and enclosed. Maybe because we have a system of strong established planning Laws and very few people know or care how they work. Maybe because developments of the scale that we have become accustomed to require the resources and expertise only available in such organisations and we are not offered and, as a society, do not yet want an alternative?

The protest gave me a greater insight into the social problems of our and other nations. It also gave me a still greater respect for those who spend their lives dealing with them. However I remain convinced that they are symptoms of the greater problems of greed and over consumption which have developed over centuries.

The future must be shaped by us all working towards ways of having satisfying, stimulating lives that respect and maintain the diversity of life on the planet and provide for our needs. This does not necessarily mean having a "job" in the traditional sense, simply to supply the money to buy our desires. A sustainable secure future is one where our education and knowledge of the interactions and processes in nature are enhanced by our skills and technology to provide for our needs and give time for the social interactions which support our sense of self and reduce our insecurities.

There is a beautiful world to share, not to be denied to people because they have to participate in an economic roundabout the proceeds of which are siphoned off to the financial elite before they can even start to buy their bit of it. If the pure genius occupation did nothing else it housed and fed sixty people over four months close to central London, with no more social problems than are seen on any estate, for a cost of around four thousand pounds. Or, putting it another way, less than £20 a person a month. So when we are told there simply isn't the money to educate our children or develop alternative sustainable cities maybe we will start to question supermarket profits in the hundreds of millions and developers and financiers speculating with billions of pounds worth of land whilst manipulating the planning system and forcing us all to live with the results?