![\"Campaigners](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/gdams-2014-coventry.jpg\")
<\/a>In Coventry, campaigners from Pax Christi and Stop The War protested against the use of Council Tax money to invest in arms companies such as Lockheed Martin. At lunch-time, the campaigners attempted to present a letter of protest to the Lockheed Martin’s office in Coventry\u00a0University\u2019s Technology Park.<\/p>\nThey\u00a0were prevented from entering the site by security guards who had been posted there since 7am, in anticipation of protest.\u00a0Eventually, it was agreed that the security guards would deliver the letter, which calls on Lockheed Martin to explain whether they continue to be involved in the manufacture of cluster bombs.<\/p>\n
Later in the day, campaigners distributed leaflets in the city centre, explaining the Council\u2019s complicity in the funding of arms companies with\u00a0Council Tax money. To publicise the Day of Action, campaigners used postcards illustrating alternatives to military spending, a petition to scrap Trident, and a People\u2019s Budget to allow citizens to declare their own spending priorities.<\/p>\n
No member of the public thought that money should be spent on renewing Trident. Arms companies involved in the Trident programme include Lockheed Martin, Rolls Royce, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics, all of whom have links to Coventry (the \u2018City of Peace and Reconciliation\u2019, as it likes to be known), and receive public funding through investments of Council Tax money in the West Midlands Pension Fund.<\/p>\n