New eviction plan underway for London's protest camp

Local authority on Tuesday confirmed its new plan to evict the anti-capitalist protesters camped outside St Paul's Cathedral. The protest camp of 200-plus tents has been pitched in St Paul's Churchyard on land owned by the cathedral and the City of London Corporation (CLC), the municipal authority, since October 15, following a failed bid to occupy the neighboring London Stock Exchange as part of a day of protests in cities around the world over the bankers' crisis. Cathedral authorities and the CLC initially asked protesters to leave, followed with threat of legal action, but later dropped its plans to evict the protesters. However, CLC policy chairman Stuart Fraser Tuesday said moves to evict had restarted. "We paused legal action for two weeks for talks with those in the camp on how to shrink the extent of the tents and to set a departure date, but got nowhere. Now they have rejected a reasonable offer to let them stay until the New Year, it's got to be the courts," Fraser said. He also mentioned CLC had reports of "late-night drinking and other worrying trends" which meant action had to be taken. Letters of eviction are likely to be served on protesters Wednesday, and if they remain through Thursday the issue will be taken to the High Court. The legal process is likely to take a couple of months. Early Tuesday, New York police moved in to clear the Occupy Wall Street protest from a park in Manhattan, which was the inspiration for the St Paul's protest camp.