David Bangs

Bangs worked as a public mural painter in central London from 1980 to 1990.{{Cite web|title=Dave Bangs – For Walls With Tongues|url=https://www.forwallswithtongues.org.uk/artists/david-bangs/|access-date=2021-04-09|language=en-US}}

Bangs has campaigned on a number of fronts to protect access rights to the Sussex Downland.Bangs, D.. (2011). Public forests - The wildlife NGOs: Broken-backed but dangerous. Ecos 32. 23-26. He is the co-founder of Keep Our Downs Public.Brighton & Hove City Council, POLICY, RESOURCES & GROWTH COMMITTEE, [https://present.brighton-hove.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=103522 Agenda Item 76(c)], 8 December 2016{{Cite web|date=2016-12-09|title=Brighton Downland reprieved|url=https://bhfoe.org/2016/12/09/brighton-downland-reprieved/|access-date=2021-04-14|website=Brighton & Hove Friends of the Earth|language=en}}{{Cite web|last=Goodey|first=Jan|title=Environmental vandalism? Campaigners regroup to stop the Great Downland Sell-Off|url=https://theecologist.org/2017/mar/15/environmental-vandalism-campaigners-regroup-stop-great-downland-sell|access-date=2021-04-14|website=theecologist.org|language=en}}{{Cite web|title=Campaigners hold public meeting against South Downs sell off|url=https://www.eastbourneherald.co.uk/news/campaigners-hold-public-meeting-against-south-downs-sell-1181954|access-date=2021-04-14|website=www.eastbourneherald.co.uk|language=en}} In 2016 councils across Sussex threatened to privatise large areas of the Downs, including Brighton Council's Downland Estate,{{Cite web|last=Gosling|first=Tony|date=2016-11-17|title=Concerns raised over Brighton and Hove City Council's biggest sell-off of downland in 20 years|url=http://tlio.org.uk/concerns-raised-over-brighton-and-hove-city-councils-biggest-sell-off-of-downland-in-20-years/|access-date=2021-03-31|website=The Land Is Ours|language=en-GB}}{{Cite web|last=Vowles|first=Neil|title=Concerns raised over council's biggest sell-off of downland in 20 years|url=https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/14876063.concerns-raised-over-councils-biggest-sell-off-of-downland-in-20-years/|access-date=2021-03-31|website=The Argus|language=en}} Worthing Council's Downland Estate, and Eastbourne Council's Downland Estate.{{Cite web|title=Campaigners hold public meeting against South Downs sell off|url=https://www.eastbourneherald.co.uk/news/campaigners-hold-public-meeting-against-south-downs-sell-1181954|access-date=2021-03-31|website=www.eastbourneherald.co.uk|language=en}} Bangs was in the leadership teams of successful campaigns to prevent their sale from public ownership to private ownership.{{Cite web|date=2017-01-20|title=Green and Tory alliance thwarts downland sale by Brighton and Hove council|url=https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2017/01/20/green-and-tory-alliance-thwarts-downland-sale-by-brighton-and-hove-council/|access-date=2021-03-31|website=Brighton and Hove News|language=en-US}}

Bangs was co-leader of the Sussex Access Campaign and its programme of mass trespasses that helped build pressure for the enactment of a partial right to roam in the CROW Act (Countryside and Rights of Way Act, 2000).{{Cite web|last=Moses|first=Jonathan|date=2021-11-26|title=The need to trespass: let people in to protect nature, says guerrilla botanist|url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/26/david-bangs-sussex-guerrilla-botanist-trespass-protecting-nature-aoe|access-date=2021-11-26|website=the Guardian|language=en}}{{Cite web|last=Marzouk|first=Lawrence|title=Fight for Downs rambling rights|url=https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/2343628.fight-for-downs-rambling-rights/|access-date=2021-04-02|website=The Argus|language=en}}{{Cite web|title=Right To Roam Bill - Friday 26 March 1999 - Hansard - UK Parliament|url=https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1999-03-26/debates/3d69fb07-00b1-46d4-8421-a410d63f9285/RightToRoamBill|access-date=2021-04-02|website=hansard.parliament.uk|language=en}}{{Cite web|title=Winning the right to roam - Ramblers|url=https://www.ramblers.org.uk/get-involved/campaign-with-us/past-campaigns/right-to-roam-crow.aspx|access-date=2021-04-02|website=www.ramblers.org.uk|language=en}} More recently (2021) he has co-founded the Landscapes of Freedom project and collaborated with Nick Hayes and Guy Shrubsole to protest the short fallings of the CROW act, which Shrubsole claims still only gives the public access to 8% of land and 3% of rivers in England.{{Cite book|last=Shrubsole|first=Guy|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1104045539|title=Who owns England? : how we lost our green and pleasant land, and how to take it back|date=2020|isbn=978-0-00-832171-0|location=London|oclc=1104045539}}

Landscapes of Freedom organised a mass trespass of three hundred plus people on 24 July 2021 where 300 people walked from the Waterhall, Brighton to Pangdean Bottom to protest the statistic that Hayes called a "national scandal".{{Cite web|title=How the trespass movement is battling for a kinder, more inclusive Britain|url=https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/environment/2021/07/how-trespass-movement-battling-kinder-more-inclusive-britain|access-date=2021-07-30|website=www.newstatesman.com|language=en}} Bangs said reconnecting people with nature is "crucial for stopping global ecocide". In a speech given at the event he said,

“If people cannot be in nature, people can’t defend it. What the eye cannot see, the heart cannot grieve. Brighton council must designate all downland under its management as statutory access land”.{{Cite web|title=Hundreds attend mass trespass for the right to roam|url=https://www.theargus.co.uk/magazine/sussex_walks/east_sussex_walks/19467688.mass-trespass-attended-300-brighton-downs/|access-date=2021-07-26|website=The Argus|language=en}}

Bangs has co-led other successful campaigns such as 'Defend Council Housing' which campaigned against the privatisation (stock transfer) of the City of Brighton's council housing (2005–2007).{{Cite web|last=Hazelgrove|first=Jack|title=Affordable housing is our goal|url=https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/1616205.affordable-housing-is-our-goal/|access-date=2021-04-15|website=The Argus|language=en}}{{Cite web|last=Bhattacharyya|first=Anindya|title=Housing campaigners crank up heat on the government|url=https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/10602/Housing%20campaigners%20crank%20up%20heat%20on%20the%20government|access-date=2021-04-02|website=Socialist Worker (Britain)}}

Bangs has appeared on Radio 4's Today Programme, Farming Today and Pebble Mill at One and he has also appeared on the BBC1 programme Countryfile.

Bangs has written three books, Whitehawk Hill: Where the Turf meets the Surf, a landscape history and natural history of Brighton’s most remarkable Downland survival (2004),{{Cite book|last=Bangs|first=David|url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29073277-whitehawk-hill-where-the-turf-meets-the-surf|title=Whitehawk Hill: Where the Turf meets the Surf, a landscape history and natural history of Brighton's most remarkable Downland survival|publisher=David Bangs|year=2004|isbn=0954863801}} A Freedom to Roam Guide to the Brighton Downs: from Shoreham to Newhaven and Beeding to Lewes (2008)British wildlife : the magazine for the modern naturalist., 2014, Vol.25(3), p.228{{Cite book|last=Bangs|first=Dave|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/701098669|title=A freedom to roam Guide to the Brighton Downs : from Shoreham to Newhaven and Beeding to Lewes|date=2008|publisher=David Bangs|isbn=978-0-9548638-1-4|location=Brighton|oclc=701098669}}{{cite journal |title=Reviews: Secret places: A Freedom to Roam Guide to the Brighton Downs |journal=Open Space |date=Autumn 2008 |volume=29 |issue=3 |page=16 |url=https://www.oss.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/281137-open-spaces-autumn.pdf |access-date=9 May 2021}} and The Land of the Brighton Line: A Field Guide to the Middle Sussex and Southeast Surrey Weald (2018).{{Cite book|last=Bangs|first=David|title=THE LAND OF THE BRIGHTON LINE: A Field Guide to the Middle Sussex and Southeast Surrey Weald|publisher=Bishops Printers|year=2018|isbn=9780954863821|location=Farlington, Portsmouth}}

His first two works concern themselves with fauna, flora and land ownership of the Sussex Downland around the city of Brighton, England, and the threats posed to them by farms, housing developments and other socioeconomic forces.Mead G. (2012) [https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/9127567.pdf ‘Scattered Squalor’ and ‘Downland Homes’. Interwar housing at Patcham, Brighton] (Doctoral dissertation, University of Sussex). His latest work, The Land of the Brighton Line, is about the Sussex Weald.{{Cite web|last=Goodey|first=Jan|title=Tools to Heal the Weald|url=https://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article5327-the-land-of-the-brighton-line.html|access-date=2021-03-31|website=www.resurgence.org|language=en}}{{Cite web|title=The Land of the Brighton Line: A Field Guide to the Middle Sussex and South East Surrey Weald|url=https://www.nhbs.com/the-land-of-the-brighton-line-book|access-date=2021-03-31|website=www.nhbs.com|language=en}}{{cite journal |last1=Shoard |first1=Marion |author1-link=Marion Shoard |title=Book Review: The Land of the Brighton Line – ECOS – Challenging Conservation |journal=ECOS |date=2019 |volume=40 |issue=3 |url=https://www.ecos.org.uk/ecos-403-book-review-the-land-of-the-brighton-line/ |access-date=9 May 2021 |publisher=British Association of Nature Conservationists}}{{Cite web|last=Bangs|first=David|date=2020-01-06|title=Our countryside: use it or lose it|url=https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/books-our-countryside-use-it-or-lose-it|access-date=2021-04-07|website=Morning Star|language=en}}{{Cite web|last=Lewis|first=Steve|date=2021-04-13|title=Book review – The Land of the Brighton Line {{!}} Action in rural Sussex|url=https://www.ruralsussex.org.uk/book-review-the-land-of-the-brighton-line/|access-date=2021-04-16|website=www.ruralsussex.org.uk|language=en-US}} The work is of importance as reviewer Ted Benton notes as it "expresses a deeply engaged and embodied presence in the environment" from "someone who over many years has walked the footpaths, occasionally trespassed, counted the wildflowers and listened to the birds". Benton continues "Bangs seems able to recount and explain the losses while continuing to take delight in what remains. The threats, in general terms, are those affecting historic landscapes everywhere – public access and enjoyment, biodiversity and aesthetics harmed or destroyed by advancing urbanisation and agribusiness-driven intensification"Ted Benton (2020) Nature and People in the Weald of England, Capitalism Nature Socialism, 31:3, 141-143, DOI: 10.1080/10455752.2020.1778243

He has a website for his third book, Land of the Brighton Line, and has co-produced a video describing the ownership and ecological status of the Brighton Downs, Brightons Big Secret: The Downland We Own.

He hosted the BBC2 programme This Land: Coppers and Bangs, which was recommended in The Times "Today's Viewing Choice"{{Cite news|date=May 8, 2000|title=Today's viewing choice. BBC2 This Land|pages=88|work=The Times (London, England)}} and The Independent's "Pick of the Day". The Independent's review described Bangs as, "A committed advocate of the right to roam" and said, "Bangs has made it his mission to compile a companion to the wildlife of the Sussex Downs, which he feels is endangered by modern developments".{{Cite news|last=James|first=Rampton|date=May 8, 2000|title=PICK OF THE DAY: THIS LAND 7.30PM BBC2|page=15|work=The Independent (London)}}

Bangs created many public murals in central London from 1980 to 1990, including contributions to the Brixton murals and a mural commemorating the Tolpuddle Martyrs.Griffiths, C., 2018. From ‘Dorchester Labourers’ to ‘Tolpuddle Martyrs’: Celebrating Radicalism in the English Countryside. In Secular Martyrdom in Britain and Ireland (pp. 59-84). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham Photos of his murals, painted between 1977 and 1990, are on display on the For Walls With Tongues project. His murals often took inspiration from nature.

Bangs is an eco-socialist. He recognises capitalism as a system that is destroying nature and the necessary habitats for nature's ongoing survival.

Bangs feels a strong attachment to the county of Sussex and his family moved back to Hove in 1958, when he was seven. From nine or ten years old his main preoccupation has been with the countryside. He went to Reading University and then to St Martin's College of Art, where he says he was "untrained" at being an artist.{{Cite web|title=Episode 7 - If you want to get out of your head get out of your house|url=https://monumentpodcast.com/episode-7---if-you-want-to-get-out-of-your-head-get-out-of-your-house|access-date=2021-03-30|website=monumentpodcast.com}} He was one of the 'Huntley Street 14' with Piers Corbyn who got charged with conspiracy after the eviction of a big squat in 1978. The charges were dropped.{{Cite web|last=mudlark121|date=2018-08-16|title=Today in London squatting history, 1978: mass eviction in Huntley Street, Bloomsbury.|url=https://pasttenseblog.wordpress.com/2018/08/16/today-in-london-squatting-history-1978-mass-eviction-in-huntley-street-bloomsbury/|access-date=2021-04-15|website=past tense|language=en}}Kearns, K.C., 1979. Intraurban squatting in London. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 69(4), pp.589-598. He returned to Brighton after 25 years away, largely living in Kings Cross, London. He has been a public artist (mostly painting murals), a care worker, and a gardener.

{{reflist}}

• Film (narrator): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4_0kJyRw6E Our Rainforest in Miniature: Chalk Grassland and its Wildlife]
• Film (narrator): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r043Xzme04 Brightons Big Secret - The Downland We Own]
• [http://landofthebrightonline.co.uk/ The Land of the Brighton Line website]
• [https://monumentpodcast.com/episode-7---if-you-want-to-get-out-of-your-head-get-out-of-your-house A personal interview with David Parker in his monument podcasts].
• [https://newint.org/features/2021/07/20/nature-guardians Nature's Guardians], New Internationalist. [20 July 2021]

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Category:Date of birth missing (living people)

Category:Living people

Category:British writers

Category:British conservationists

Category:People from Brighton

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)