Anti-capitalists to dismantle camp

Protesters at an Occupy camp have announced they will end their protest on Sunday evening after more than six months in a city centre.

Protesters in Nottingham city centre will dismantle their camp on Sunday evening

The anti-capitalist protesters at the site in Nottingham's Old Market Square had been locked in a legal battle over their right to camp in the main square.

A statement from the group said the decision to leave after 190 days was not an easy one but the prospect of winning a trial due to start on April 30 was not hopeful.

The site was one of several set up in the UK in 2011 to voice opposition to what the protesters saw as unfairness in the financial system.

The Nottingham group said lawyers gave them only a 50 to 55% chance of success at trial and said a judge at a previous hearing stated that any proposed deal between the council and the camp was not the business of the court.

"This meant that at the next hearing of the three-day trial due to begin on April 30, that our barristers had a hugely difficult task to win the argument for the camp to be able to remain on the Market Place," the statement said.

"Whereas initially the risk of costs being awarded against camp members was removed from the previous hearing, that was not the case for the trial with a risk of some 20-30k in costs, which didn't seem such a worthwhile task with a much lower chance of success and unlikelihood of winning the case."

Nottingham City Council said the camp had to move as it posed hygiene and safety issues.

The Occupy statement added: "During the stay of over six months on Nottingham's Market Place,Occupy Nottingham feel that they have been successful with what they initially set out to achieve in raising awareness of the issues we currently face in our society."

The group said the camp, which included dozens of tents, will be dismantled as of 9pm on Sunday and the protesters would take "a needed and well-deserved" break, but added: "We are not packing it up or giving in. We have decided to use a short break to regroup, plan our next actions and reorganise before we take the campaign mobile."

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