Block the Builders is a campaign which aims to nonviolently prevent the building of new nuclear weapons facilities at AWE Aldermaston - Britian's nuclear bomb factory, near Reading in Berkshire.

In March 2007 parliament voted in favour of a new fleet of nuclear armed submarines, committing Britain to another 50 years as a nuclear weapons state. The new submarines will require missiles and warheads. the warheads will be manufactured at Aldermaston ... in the shiny new facilities currently being built.

The Block the Builders campaign aims to increase awareness of the new developments, and to mobilise for nonviolent action against them.

NEXT ORGANISE GROUP MEETING: Sunday July 13th 2.30pm at RISC, London St, Reading (location map: http://www.risc.org.uk/map/location.html). The police sometimes come to spy on us, so don't be put off if you find a van and some FIT outside.

Trident Ploughshares: Big Blockade at Aldermaston 27 October 2008.
For more details, see http://www.tridentploughshares.org/section20

About BtB

Block the Builders was set up in 2005 by AWPC and various other anti-nuclear activists.
As the Ministry of Defence Police reported in their 2006 Annual Report, “Over the past few years, there has been a steady increase in demonstrator activity by a group calling themselves Block the Builders. This is a relatively new campaign of anti-nuclear demonstrators, whose aim, using non-violent means, is to stop the building [of the Orion Laser project] through a series of “blockades� of the Aldermaston site. These demonstrations are now happening on a monthly basis. To date there have been 49 arrests in total".

Blockades have succeeded in stopping construction traffic for between one and four hours at a time, and use a wide variety of imaginative blockading techniques. Blockades are attended by between 20 and 80 people, many of them in a supporting role - where there is little risk of arrest. Other BtB protests have taken place at the sites of companies involved in construction work at Aldermaston.

Accommodation, time for planning and legal briefings are provided the night before publically announced blockades. BtB can also provide support for groups planning "suprise" actions. BtB is supported by CND, Trident Ploughshares, members of the Green Party and other individuals.

For more information about the new developments at Aldermaston see http://www.aldermaston.net/campaigns/tng/

New nuclear weapons - immoral and illegal

Any new nuclear weapons would be immoral - and unlawful. They are indiscriminate weapons which cannot distinguish between military and civilian targets, and which have a deadly legacy for generations. Any nuclear weapon - even a targetable low yield weapon - violates international law. The radiation released by any nuclear weapon cannot be contained in either space or time.

New weapons would mean that the UK would continue to break its international obligations under the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to make progress, in good faith, towards disarmament. The new facilities at AWE also undermine the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (signed and ratified by the UK, but not yet in force), as they would enable research on nuclear weapons to continue without underground testing.