Following earlier extraordinary legal decisions, including the acquittal of PC Harwood and the ruling in the High Court that pre-emptive arrests were not unlawful, comes the news that Save Leyton Marsh's application for judicial review of the planning permission for the Basketball Training facility had been thrown out without the applicants even knowing it had been heard. Even more extraordinary was the fact that the ODA had taken over the defence from Waltham Forest, even though it was not the defendant and it had not granted the planning permission. And as if that was not enough the ODA, using public funds of £40million to defend itself, applied for and has been granted an order for costs of £20,142.96, and another £4,140.00 for Waltham Forest, against the Save Leyton Marsh campaigners!

The River Lea in Spate: Taken Monday evening 11th June 2012

Press Release from Drop Dow Now

Monday the 21st May is 100 days to the Paralympic Games, a date marked with controversy due to Dow Chemical’s Paralympic sponsorship.

Campaigners have called for Dow’s sponsorship of the London Paralympic Games to be dropped due to Dow’s ownership of Union Carbide, the company responsible for the Bhopal gas disaster in 1984. The disaster killed over 20,000 and caused injury and illness to thousands more [1]. Hundreds of children continue to be born every year with birth defects [2].

On April 23rd 2012 - Shakespeare's birthday and the launch of the World Shakespeare Festival - a group of merry players known as the "Reclaim Shakespeare Company" took unexpectedly to the stage in Stratford-upon-Avon, just before a Royal Shakespeare Company performance of The Tempest. This piece of guerilla Shakespeare aimed to challenge the RSC over its decision to accept sponsorship from BP in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon drilling disaster and the oil company's decision to start extracting highly polluting and destructive tar sands in Canada.

Which dodgy company most deserves the Greenwash Gold medal in 2012? Who is covering up the most environmental destruction and devastating the most communities while pretending to be a good corporate citizen by sponsoring the Olympic games?

Steam Roller on Sandy Lane Leyton Marshes: the machine of choice for the ODA

by Steve Rushton
American League Against War and Fascism poster: Poster calling for boycott of Hitler's 1936 GamesSponsors of the 2012 London Olympics profit from peoples’ deaths and destroying the planet, whilst creating a vastly unequal economic system; this smears the Olympic ethos of people coming together to celebrate sporting excellence. Desecrating the games integrity will be advertisements from companies that profit directly from and cause peoples’ death, not least BP, Dow and Rio Tinto. Nevertheless, David Cameron has come out in support of DOW’s sponsorship.[i] More broadly, it has been argued that elites within the system are attempting to suppress peoples’ rights to express their discontent against injustices in Britain and abroad.

5th April 2012

Re: The Olympic Delivery Authority’s (ODA) recent works on Leyton Marshes, close to London’s Olympic enclosure.

Dear Mr Hone, CEO of the ODA

I am writing to you in response to your recent letter addressed to “Dear Resident” in which you attempt to persuade local people that the ODA’s plan to construct a building on Leyton Marshes (classified as Metropolitan Open Space) is justifiable.