Bunker Protest

I have to admit to feeling a bit weird when I look at this photo. It shows the final last ditch attempt by users of the Stockton Road Bunker to get Sunderland Council to actually give a fuck about the place. The council had cut funding and the place was dying a death. Something was apparent to me when this protest took place. None of the original members of the Bunker and the Sunderland Musicians Collective were there. I dont mean that in a bad way, but I went round to take some photos and didnt recognise a lot of the people there and didn't see any of the original faces. That was a good thing in a way, the Bunker was always intended to be a thing that moved on, catered for new groups and individuals. Unfortunately, it didn't do that for a long time. It had stagnated. As far as I am concerned, the place utterly lost direction as soon as we moved from Green Terrace to Stockton Road. I hated Stockton Road, simple as that. The autonomy was lost and unlike Green Terrace I never really felt any ownership of The New Bunker. I hadn't really had any involvement with the place for a long time, just used to pop my head in once and a while. So when I turned up at the Civic Centre protest and was invited into the Council meeting room to hear the decision I was quite suprised. It was full circle, the axe fell on The Bunker in the same room that twenty years before I had sat as a spotty 18 year old Punk being told that we could have Green Terrace School!

And that was that.

The Bunker is now in private hands and is basically a business, which is what it has to be. I would love to be proved wrong, but I cant see how a thing like the Green Terrace Bunker could ever happen again without some sort of corporate approval, a media trained public relations officer answerable to an executive youth participation committee staffed by loads of professional nappy changers who are to scared to do anything without consulting their 900 page health and fucking safety policy.

A mention should go out to Ned Buik and his special relationship with the Tax Man for making this photo possible.