Students, workers and residents from across Bloomsbury occupied a disused University property and have renamed 53 Gordon Square the Bloomsbury Social Centre.
The building has been empty for three years, subject to a legal dispute over its ownership. One of the claimants, the School of Oriental and African Studies, has this year announced that the property is to be redeveloped as a new post-graduate centre. Concurrently, it has announced the appointment of a new dean of post-graduate studies, one of whose perks will be a luxury apartment in the top-floor of the building.
SOAS management are perhaps ignorant of the context in which 53 Gordon Square was left vacantly to rot. Since 2008, the recession has been steadily worsening. House prices have remained unaffordable, living costs for ordinary people have continued to rise, and desperately needed public space has been made over to Big Retail at fire sale prices.
The occupation hopes to use the space that SOAS have neglected as a hub of organiing for students, workers and residents in the Bloomsbury area. Our social spaces as well as our ability to organise are under attack and this occupation hopes to tackle this issue.
In solidarity,
The Bloomsbury Social Centre
Bloomsbury Social Centre 
big up guys!!! greetings from Milan, Italy!
What;s your source as to the use of the top floor as a flat for the Dean? Give me chapter and verse!
P.S. You say that the School of Oriental and African Studies has neglected this building, but also that there is a dispute and that SOAS is only one of the claimants. Could you clarify this? Have other claimants also reglected the building, or is your issue with SOAS only?
[…] but also through the excellent work of Occupy Our Homes, as well as the Bank of Ideas and the Bloomsbury Social Centre in London. But, as encouraging as this is, a lot remains to be done: crucially, the idea of people occupying […]
[…] but also through the excellent work of Occupy Our Homes, as well as the Bank of Ideas and the Bloomsbury Social Centre in London. But, as encouraging as this is, a lot remains to be done: crucially, the idea of people occupying […]
What you are doing is exactly what the occupy movement is about; reclaiming wasteful derelict private property, in order to give it back to the people, providing a service of culture, community, and solidarity in the process. I wholeheartedly support this. Add my name to the list.