Our Communities, Our Land- No to MIPIM!

The world’s largest property fair MIPIM is coming to the UK 15-17th of October.  In response to a call-out for statements of solidarity we have replied:

We the Community Food Growers Network fully support the UK MIPIM protest “Say No to MIPIM: Our communities are not for sale!”

In the UK we have a dark recent history of land ownership with the ‘Enclosures Acts’ (1604-1914) where common land was suddenly owned by individuals, and normal people were either forced off the land or made to pay higher rents.  Currently 0.6% of the UK population own 47% of the land in the UK.

We see the MIPIM process of councils and developers colluding to enclose more and more land for the sake of profits, and taking them away from communities, as an extension to the disastrous history of the Enclosures.

Whether it is land for growing food, housing, recreation, or energy production, we must have community access to this infrastructure and space in order to live and meet our basic human needs.  MIPIM only seeks to further concentrate corporate control over our land- pushing people out of our home communities- as we saw with a CFGN member garden in the Heygate Estate, Elephant Castle.

We are proud to add our voice to a coalition with European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and the City; the Radical Housing Network; housing activist groups, trade unions, and say “Our Communities, Our Land- No to MIPIM!