Legacy of Dale Farm: Nine months after £7m battle to remove Travellers, the site that was meant to be green belt has become a fly-tippers' paradise

From the Daily Mail

It was supposed to be turned back into greenbelt land.

But almost nine months after more than £7million was spent evicting Travellers at Dale Farm, the site has become a dumping ground for fly-tippers.

Industrial waste, rotting food and discarded furniture cover what used to be Europe's largest illegal Travellers' site.

Rats and foxes now roam across the six-acre plot causing potential health risks to homeowners living nearby.

Craters left by the bailiffs' heavy machinery have filled with stagnant water. The stench of human waste is overpowering.

Conditions have become so bad that the homeowner who led a ten-year campaign to remove the Travellers said life was better before the eviction.

Len Gridley, 53, whose garden backs on to Dale Farm, said yesterday: 'It's worse now than it was when the Travellers were there. First, I was living next to a travellers' site. Now it's a bombsite.

'Either way, no one would want to buy my home. The site is an absolute tip and I have rats living all along the back of my garden.'

Others say the value of their homes has dropped by 20 per cent because of the stigma attached to the site. An estimated £50million has been wiped off the value of the 400 properties in the village of Crays Hill, Essex, since the Travellers colonised the site in 2001.

Pensioner Henry Scott, who lives nearby, has been trying to sell his home for two years, but has had no offers.

He said: 'Who is going to rush to buy a house here with Dale Farm and the Travellers here?'

Basildon Council evicted the Travellers and their supporters following a tense stand-off last October. The council is now responsible for turning it back into green belt land. However, council leader Tony Ball hinted that the mess would not be cleared until next year.

He said the site, which is owned by the Travellers, could not be cleared until the council had recovered some of the eviction costs.

The council may even seize the site from the Travellers as an asset to offset its clearance costs. It would then be able to clean it quickly.

However, the local authority may face a costly and protracted court battle to gain ownership of the plot. The Travellers, funded by legal aid, would almost certainly fight to block the application.

After the successful clean-up operation last year, many of the travellers moved onto the legal section of Dale Farm.

And once the bailiffs had left, some families parked their caravans and mobile homes along the road which approaches the site.

Many are still living illegally on this stretch of road, despite attempts to move them on.

One 58-year-old Traveller, who refused to be named, said: 'The council spent nearly £8million here and for what?

'When we were on the site we kept it clean – now look at the place. It's become a local dumping ground.'

A council spokesman said: 'Local authorities can only tackle fly-tipping on public land, highways and lay-bys. Fly-tipping on private land such as the Dale Farm site is the responsibility of the landowner.

'However, we can refer extreme cases that we consider detrimental to the environment to the Environment Agency, who will decide whether to take further action.'