Battle for Stokes Croft Continued.

As you may have heard the Tescos eventually did open in April 2011. At first people picketed outside the store giving out information and talking to the public. This was very civilised and I had a good feeling about these guys, however; some unsavory people had moved into the Telepathic Heights building across the road driving out the nice people that I had come to know. Now i don't know the exact details but apparently one of them made a threat to blow up the Tesco building, a threat the local authorities took rather seriously.

I arrived on the scene an hour into the events and had to go round the block to get to my back gate on picton street. The whole roundabout on the Cheltenham road/Ashley road junction was blocked by lines of police. They had tried to evict Telepathic Heights but the public who were in the swing of a night out ignited!

People had tried to block themselves into the area, or more to the point stop the police from getting in by taking peoples bins and lining them in the road. The big thing to do was to set the bins on fire. This didnt stop the police the first time or any of the times after that but it made people feel strong in some way.

The fire brigade was quick to put them out after the police had cleared the area of people throwing bottles and bits of masonary.

The whole event spread to the st pauls area and at times the Telepathic Heights building was one of the most peacful places to be. Events did return to the area with people throwing things wildly at the police (and consequently other members of the public). People shouting 'Our Streets!' and claiming that this wouldn't be happening if the police weren't there, conveniently detaching themselves from responsibility over the moral choice to throw that brick or not. Eventualy the police did evacuate the area and when this happened I saw a man running down the street wildly ripping the council bins off of their fixings, the ego had won. Attention quickly turned to the Tesco building.

People laid into that place like there was no tomorow. The police returned and everyone ran and threw things. This happened a few times and I eventualy got bored of drawing because it was a mindless show of muscle on both sides.

The next morning and the area was being treated as a crime scene in part due to the fact that an officer almost died from having a block of masonary dropped on his head. International media was there and people were being interviewed. The local population seemed to disliked the events that took place that night.

The Tesco opened again a month later.

to be continued?