Dale Farm Travellers face new eviction battle after moving to nearby site

The fight for Dale Farm, which saw 80 families evicted from an unauthorised Traveller site after a gruelling 10-year battle, is not over yet. Basildon council has confirmed it is set to start procedures to evict Travellers who moved from Dale Farm on to a neighbouring site.

The council said it had begun drafting enforcement notices for caravans on the "overcrowded" legal site in Essex. These are expected to be served by the end of January and would give Travellers 28 days to vacate the land.

The eviction of Dale Farm after a decade of legal wrangling saw violent clashes between Travellers, supporters and riot police. Riot police entered the site at dawn in October last year, and were criticised for the use of Tasers against protesters.

Since then many evicted Travellers have moved to other sites, but some have parked alongside roads inside the site, or on plots on the neighbouring sites, according to the council. Cormac Smith, head of communications at Basildon council, said the council was assessing how many people living on the legal site were not entitled to be there, adding that the "wheels of justice" had been put into action. He said the council estimated that around 50 caravans were either on the road by the site or on the legal site.

"The council has always said it would enforce against overcrowding on the legal site," he said. "On many of the plots on the Oak Lane site there is a problem of overcrowding."

The council was only at the beginning of a process of eviction that could take a considerable time, he said. "The wheels of justice grind slowly, and that is the case here. We are going to carry out this action as fast as we can but, as the eviction of Dale Farm showed, it can be a painfully slow process."

The leader of the council, Tony Ball, was determined that it would not take 10 years, he added. Every Traveller from Dale Farm had been offered alternative bricks-and-mortar accommodation, he said.

Candy Sheridan, the vice-chair of the Gypsy Council and a Dale Farm campaigner, said the further eviction of Dale Farm Travellers was "a total waste of money". Other sites in Essex had been identified and money to fund them was available from the Homes and Communities Agency, she added. "After the clearance of Dale Farm Tony Ball admitted there was a need for Travellers' pitches in Essex," she said. "Instead of wasting public money, if there is a need let's come to a sensible solution."

The cost of the Dale Farm eviction has not yet been calculated but a spokesman said the authority was "confident" the cost would come in under the £8m budget.