Protesters to target Oxford site

Environmental activists are to step up their campaign against housebuilders and plan to target a major housing development, as yet unnamed, in the Oxford area next Monday (12 July).

The protest is planned as the finale of a conference, entitled 'Meeting housing need without destroying the environment', being held this weekend at Ruskin College, Oxford. The conference has been organised by the Urgent Network, an amalgam of pressure groups including Friends of the Earth, Earth First! and the Council for the Protection of Rural England.

One of the sessions is devoted to enabling people fighting greenfield housing developments to meet and share campaigning skills with those campaigning for social housing provision and urban/rural regeneration. Paul Deluce, a member of Earth First! commented: "With local authorities under pressure from developers and central government to find land for new housing, construction companies are increasingly building the wrong type of homes in the wrong places. The outcome is destruction of the countryside, traffic generation, urban decay and a continued shortage of affordable housing."