The Friends of Egerton Park will be holding this year's Green Day event on Saturday 3rd July in Egerton Park, Bexhill between 11am and 3pm.
The event will include stalls, refreshments and a children's activity zone run by the Rother Children's Centre, plus of course, BALI will be there to answer your questions. Please come along and support the event and say hello!
Wednesday 30 June 2010
Monday 28 June 2010
Register Now to Become a Member of BALI! Please Show Your Support
We have decided to reorganize BALI as a broad-based membership association, open to all Bexhill residents. For a nominal subscription you will receive a quarterly newsletter and the right to vote on important matters at the AGM.
BALI’s aim is simply to stop the landfill. We started our campaign in 2002 with a small group of residents. Through widespread public support, we have become a force with which to be reckoned.
To register for membership, please:
email BALI info@nolandfillatbexhill.org.uk, stating your name, address, contact phone no. and email address, or if you would prefer, download and complete the form, and send it to BALI, PO Box 194, Bexhill on Sea, East Sussex TN 40 9BD.
Please indicate if you would also be willing to play a more active part in our campaign, for example, serving on committees, researching, organizing or assisting canvassing or fundraising events.
We will contact you with full details of our membership scheme and a full application form.
Thank you for your support.
BALI’s aim is simply to stop the landfill. We started our campaign in 2002 with a small group of residents. Through widespread public support, we have become a force with which to be reckoned.
To register for membership, please:
email BALI info@nolandfillatbexhill.org.uk, stating your name, address, contact phone no. and email address, or if you would prefer, download and complete the form, and send it to BALI, PO Box 194, Bexhill on Sea, East Sussex TN 40 9BD.
Please indicate if you would also be willing to play a more active part in our campaign, for example, serving on committees, researching, organizing or assisting canvassing or fundraising events.
We will contact you with full details of our membership scheme and a full application form.
Thank you for your support.
Wednesday 16 June 2010
Government Announces a Review of Waste policy
The Government is to carry out a full review of waste policy in England, looking at the most effective ways of reducing waste, maximising the money to be made from waste and recycling, and how waste policies affect local communities and individual households.
Terms of reference for the review will be published in the next few weeks. To read more, please visit the defra website or check back for updates.
Terms of reference for the review will be published in the next few weeks. To read more, please visit the defra website or check back for updates.
Saturday 12 June 2010
BALI Westminster No-Landfill Demo 11th June 2010
It was a really good day with even the weather behaving itself so BALI members were all able to 'strip' off to show the wonderful T Shirts organised by Colin Bennett - which, with small donations over the actual price, has actually made money for BALI!
We gathered on Parliament Square to be photographed by both Meridian TV and others including some very interested passers by, and with the wonderful backdrop of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.
BALI Chairman, Nick Hollington was interviewed by Meridian, and we were then joined by Greg Barker, our very supportive MP, who wasn't averse to holding a placard saying 'Don't dump on Bexhill'.
Greg was also interviewed by Meridian, but sadly we were only given about a 10 second slot on Saturday evening!
After all the excitement, BALI took a tour of the Houses of Parliament, which was fantastic - so much history and so much to see, with both the Lords and Commons chambers seeming very much smaller than they appear on TV - An incredible experience.
Thanks to all who came and really helped to get over the message - and as the youngest present, Alexandra said it was the best school trip ever!
Read the article in the Bexhill Observer 17th June 2010 Anti-Landfill protest gets the Commons touch
Tuesday 8 June 2010
BALI Westminster Trip This Friday!
BALI members will be making a trip to Westminster this Friday 11th June to protest about the proposal for a landfill site at Ashdown Brickworks. Check back soon to find out what happened!
Read the latest articles about BALI on the Bexhill Observer Website:
Westminster beckons for landfill protestors (3rd June 2010)
Read the latest articles about BALI on the Bexhill Observer Website:
Westminster beckons for landfill protestors (3rd June 2010)
Tuesday 1 June 2010
BALI visit to Laybrook and Thakeham Village Action
Recently we received some good news, though not about Ashdown Brickworks.
Our colleagues at Thakeham Village Action in West Sussex, fighting a proposed Cory/Ibstock landfill at Laybrook Brickworks had, against all the odds, achieved a famous victory. The planning application to landfill Laybrook had been withdrawn!
This news goes to show that a fight against an unsuitable landfill site is never over till it's over. Unlike Ashdown, Laybrook was already in the West Sussex waste plan and Cory/Ibstock had already put in a planning application. We felt that their cause was nearly a 'goner', but they just kept on fighting – and they won.
We wondered if there were lessons we (BALI) could learn from their successful campaign and asked if we might go down to see them. They were keen to meet us also, having followed closely our campaign. So we (Raymond Walley, Colin Bennett and myself) arranged to meet them in the local village pub, The White Lion, which had become a sort of HQ for their campaign.
First we went to see the Laybrook quarry site which had similarities to Ashdown although it was one big hole rather than two (it is not always understood there are two pits at Ashdown). In many ways, and this was encouraging, we felt Ashdown was far less suitable for landfill than Laybrook. Access to the Laybrook quarry is much better, along good roads. Also there are hardly any houses or amenities within 1 ½ miles of the quarry. Compare Ashdown, sandwiched between the Highwoods SSSI and Bexhill Cemetery, with the Golf Club over the road and the new Bexhill High School and app.4000 houses within a mile of the site!
After visiting the Laybrook site we returned to the White Lion to eat, drink and chat with Jean Beckett and the TVA team in a convivial atmosphere, sharing so many experiences, closely bonded by our common struggle.
"So how did you do it?" we asked. Of course there was no magic formula, no silver bullet they could hand us to defeat the Ashdown landfill proposal at a stroke. So much had been down to their sheer hard work, continually campaigning, lobbying, researching, fundraising etc. over many years.
People seldom realize how groups like TVA and BALI give up so much of their lives over such a long period (TVA: 10 years, BALI 8 ) to fight their causes. TVA just kept on even when their cause looked hopeless. "Never give up!" was above all the message.
But they did give us lots of practical 'tips' to take back to our committee. One was not only to lobby ‘the political establishment’ (e.g. ESCC, Rother District Council) but also quasi-governmental organizations such as the Environment Agency, the Highways authority, English Nature and the Council for Protection for Rural England (CPRE). Also to simply keep giving hard information out (e.g. to Councillors) on the difficulties of operating the proposed landfill, or its harmful effects, even if, as was often the case, they received no reply.
TVA had also organized some excellent events to canvass local support, for instance a Saturday afternoon ‘family march’ around the local area with children, dogs, bands playing etc. which brought out about a thousand people and was heavily publicized in the local paper. The paper also agreed to let them have a regular slot, reporting on their activities and explaining why not only this landfill, but waste landfill in general, was a bad idea and unnecessary in this day and age when so much more waste can be recycled and there are so many new technologies available for disposing of the remainder, many of which can also produce heat and energy resources.
We felt we learnt a lot and came back to Bexhill buzzing with ideas for our BALI Campaign. Above all we felt encouraged by TVA’s final victory and their willingness to give our campaign every support. Many thanks to our friends at Thakeham: you are an example and an inspiration to us!
Our colleagues at Thakeham Village Action in West Sussex, fighting a proposed Cory/Ibstock landfill at Laybrook Brickworks had, against all the odds, achieved a famous victory. The planning application to landfill Laybrook had been withdrawn!
This news goes to show that a fight against an unsuitable landfill site is never over till it's over. Unlike Ashdown, Laybrook was already in the West Sussex waste plan and Cory/Ibstock had already put in a planning application. We felt that their cause was nearly a 'goner', but they just kept on fighting – and they won.
We wondered if there were lessons we (BALI) could learn from their successful campaign and asked if we might go down to see them. They were keen to meet us also, having followed closely our campaign. So we (Raymond Walley, Colin Bennett and myself) arranged to meet them in the local village pub, The White Lion, which had become a sort of HQ for their campaign.
First we went to see the Laybrook quarry site which had similarities to Ashdown although it was one big hole rather than two (it is not always understood there are two pits at Ashdown). In many ways, and this was encouraging, we felt Ashdown was far less suitable for landfill than Laybrook. Access to the Laybrook quarry is much better, along good roads. Also there are hardly any houses or amenities within 1 ½ miles of the quarry. Compare Ashdown, sandwiched between the Highwoods SSSI and Bexhill Cemetery, with the Golf Club over the road and the new Bexhill High School and app.4000 houses within a mile of the site!
After visiting the Laybrook site we returned to the White Lion to eat, drink and chat with Jean Beckett and the TVA team in a convivial atmosphere, sharing so many experiences, closely bonded by our common struggle.
"So how did you do it?" we asked. Of course there was no magic formula, no silver bullet they could hand us to defeat the Ashdown landfill proposal at a stroke. So much had been down to their sheer hard work, continually campaigning, lobbying, researching, fundraising etc. over many years.
People seldom realize how groups like TVA and BALI give up so much of their lives over such a long period (TVA: 10 years, BALI 8 ) to fight their causes. TVA just kept on even when their cause looked hopeless. "Never give up!" was above all the message.
But they did give us lots of practical 'tips' to take back to our committee. One was not only to lobby ‘the political establishment’ (e.g. ESCC, Rother District Council) but also quasi-governmental organizations such as the Environment Agency, the Highways authority, English Nature and the Council for Protection for Rural England (CPRE). Also to simply keep giving hard information out (e.g. to Councillors) on the difficulties of operating the proposed landfill, or its harmful effects, even if, as was often the case, they received no reply.
TVA had also organized some excellent events to canvass local support, for instance a Saturday afternoon ‘family march’ around the local area with children, dogs, bands playing etc. which brought out about a thousand people and was heavily publicized in the local paper. The paper also agreed to let them have a regular slot, reporting on their activities and explaining why not only this landfill, but waste landfill in general, was a bad idea and unnecessary in this day and age when so much more waste can be recycled and there are so many new technologies available for disposing of the remainder, many of which can also produce heat and energy resources.
We felt we learnt a lot and came back to Bexhill buzzing with ideas for our BALI Campaign. Above all we felt encouraged by TVA’s final victory and their willingness to give our campaign every support. Many thanks to our friends at Thakeham: you are an example and an inspiration to us!
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