Synopsis

The award-winning documentary charts the progress of the campaign to stop the M11 Link road destroying an East London community in Wanstead in 1993 and 1994. The film won the OKO Media 1994 and WWF/BT Community Award 1995. Divided into two parts, the video concerns alternate parts of the strategy of campaigners, locals and activists. The first part outlines the struggle in October 1993 in which locals gather together to save their homes which they’ve lived in for generations. The video captures direct action and altercations between the protestors and the police and construction workers. 370 homes were marked to be destroyed by the M11 and homes were compulsory purchased by the DOT. We see residents squatting in their own homes with young activists squatting in solidarity. The first part ends with a housing solicitor declaring squatters’ rights – squatters cannot be evicted without a court order which normally takes up to two months. An order can only be served on named residents.

Part 2 begins in Georgegreen Wanstead in November 1993 where protesters set up a home in a chestnut tree which sits in the way of the path of the M11 road. We see activities taking place around the tree: people gathered around playing music; a choir; a children’s Tree Dressing Ceremony, as well as protest action where locals and activists . The sequence shows a campaign seeking an injunction to stop the tree being cut down at the Royal Court of Justice in December 1993 which is the first time that a tree has been classified by the law as a dwelling space. The camera cuts to the Letterbox attached to the tree. Afterwards, an eviction order is placed on the tree and we see multiple people on landlines phoning up others to be a branch on a phone tree in which each person is in charge of calling three people to spread the news around the tree. At the end of this sequence, we see an action to protect a home from demolition for the M11, as squatters chain themselves to the roofs.