Nottingham, 22 September 1998
Apparently about 30 people were arrested at the party and another 20 on Forest Fields
(the Goose Fair land) afterwards.
From a first-time partygoer:
The Nottingham RTS on Mansfield Road was a first for me. I write to you now as a
convert. I do not share all of RTS's political views, but for me the point of the street
party is to question the established hierarchy, encourage better policies on public
tranport, and have a fucking good time. Where else can you dance ecstatically surrounded
by police in broad daylight? When else do you see thirty-somethings, children, Big Issue
Vendors and up-and-coming young executives discard their differences and share in a truly
solid community event? The car will never be destroyed (not before we have really fucked
the place up), and capitalist ideas of economic progress are here to stay. And there are
positive things to be said for both. But I am an idealist, and hope that the continued RTS
carnival will have some effect, might reduce the traffic, might encourage subsidised
public transport, might see more city centres wholly pedestrianised. The important thing
for me however has been to make me stop and see that it doesn't have to be this way, that
if I WANT to stop the traffic and dance all afternoon in the street I can. And in a street
empty of quotidien bustle, noise and dirt, no-one can deny the atmosphere is more
congenial than usual.