From this week's SchNEWS:
This year’s Welsh Green Gathering has been cancelled for the second year running - thanks to objections once again from the cops.
Last year Dyfed Powys police objected on the grounds that festival land would be contaminated with “human waste, diesel and
cannabis.” [Diesel? at a solar and wind only gathering? Hmmmm]
This year the gathering, in the planning since June last year, was to take place in Margam Country Park,
South Wales and all seemed to be going well. Until the Detective Inspector of Port Talbot police stuck his oar in and said he feared serious public disorder so £60,000 to
police the crowd of just four thousand had to be coughed up. The Council, fearing a riot, cancelled the
booking.
Er, public disorder at a Green Gathering? Maybe if you count people overdosing on lentil flapjacks or being trapped in dozens of deadly dream catchers or perhaps a pack
of pedal-powered powder peddlers pelting police with a barrage of crystals.
In fact, the event was going to be so riotous members of the Welsh National Assembly were planning to
take part in green forums and the Centre For Alternative Technology along with other such axe-wielding
maniacs were to busy themselves at the event promoting sustainable living. Not to mention the festival helping to restore the park and converting to solar power the presently disused road-train.
The Welsh Green Gathering is now seriously out of pocket and threatening to sue the Council.
Organisers reckon the decision was linked to a yearlong direct action campaign against an incinerator in Swansea. Yesterday the incinerator was given the green light.
Green Party spokesman Martin Shrewsbury commented “Port Talbot council are supporting an
incinerator to poison us all and cancelling a festival about alternative sustainable energy.”
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