The Land is Ours

The Land is Ours is a British land rights campaign advocating access to the land, its resources, and the planning processes.

The group was set up in the 1990s by George Monbiot and others.

One of their first campaigns was the occupation of the disused Wisley Airfield in Surrey by 400 people in 1995 from which there was a live broadcast onto the BBC's Newsnight programme. Nearby St. George's Hill is symbolically significant as it was previously seized by the Diggers in 1649, who planted vegetables on the common land there. The group finally occupied the hill in 1999, the 350th anniversary of the Diggers' occupation.

In May 1996 the group set up Pure Genius!!, an eco-village on squatted land owned by Guinness in Wandsworth, London. The site was evicted on 15 October 1996.

In 2009 a group inspired by The Land Is Ours opened Kew Bridge Eco Village, a squatted eco village on land owned by property developers St George; this was evicted on 27 May 2010.

External links

The 1995 occupation was of the South side of the disused Wisley Airfield - not St Georges Hill. We did go to the hill to do a play one afternoon but never occupied it.

• The Land is Ours website
• Diggers 350 is the UK Squatting and Land Rights email information and discussion service
• The Story of the Land on George Monbiot's website.
• Video from Pure Genius campaign