Industrial Workers of the World

UK Shock Horror - squat opens a few doors from Thatcher + Oubliette "Housing based on need, using direct action where will it all end ??? Strewth is no empty Mansion safe from these riff raff ? What next the Cathedrals of conspicuous consumption here in Oz...What about the real estate values / etc." - some Brumbyland Real Estate Developer

Squat in the act! Moment empty £12m home a few doors down from Margaret Thatcher got some new tenants By Daily Mail Reporter 19th October 2009 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1216877/Squat-act-Moment-12m-home-doors-Margaret-Thatcher-got-new-tenants.html

This is the moment when serial squatters set up home in a £12million three-storey property doors away from the house of Margaret Thatcher. The seven squatters moved into the four-bedroom house in Chester Square, Belgravia just before midnight last night. The group, many of whom were last week evicted from the 80-room former Sudanese embassy in Kensington, said they targeted properties in west London owned by absentee foreigners. They said they entered the house legally by a broken window and claimed it had been unoccupied for more than three months.

Squatters take over a Belgrave House only yards from the home of former Prime Minister, Margater Thatcher One squatter, who gave his name as Jake Tag, said: "We knew it was near Margaret Thatcher's house. It's hard to believe we've ended up living so near someone like that."This is the richest place to live in London. Living here is a dream come true. We're going to keep the place clean and tidy and we won't do any damage. It's all perfectly legal and we just want to set up a nice home in an abandoned house."

Film maker Mark James, 44, from Knightsbridge, has been producing a documentary about the squatters. He said: "Margaret thatcher has a 24-hour diplomatic security detail and nobody has noticed these squatters moving in so close to her house. these squatters come from all over the world and are here because they can't afford rent. they target homes in Belgravia, Kensington and Chelsea because rich people own them and just sit on a beach in another country. "I'm sure residents including Margaret thatcher won't be entirely happy with their new neighbours but these people are not going to do any damage, will keep the place tidy and are there entirely legally. "If they get evicted from this house by the owners, they have other addresses in mind. there are lots of empty properties in this area."

A group of squatters known as the Oubliette took over the former Mexican embassy in Mayfair and the former tanzanian high commission next door this month. Former prime minister Baroness Thatcher bought her Chester Square home in 1991 for about £700,000. The average house price in the square is now £7m. Prize: the £12m four-bedroom house that seven squatters have moved into

More:

One million homes are expected to be empty in the UK this year, despite 1.8 million Britons being on the waiting list for social housing, according to Inside Housing magazine's Empty Promises campaign. In 2008, there were more empty properties in the north-west of England than anywhere else in the country, with 129,073 houses lying vacant, says the charity the Empty Homes Agency.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/oct/16/empty-houses-london-wealthy-owners

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Dan Simon, a debonair New Zealander who is the chief architect of the Oubliette, says squatting is a "social necessity – an important and greatly underestimated civil right" which can be a force for good. The Oubliette, London's original Arthouse, was founded in a disused English language school in Waterloo, in April 2009.

http://theoubliette.co.uk/