A year on: Parliamentarians to visit Dale Farm

From the Irish Traveller Movement In Britain

On Friday 7th September at 11.00am, Lord Avebury and Andy Slaughter MP, both members of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Gypsies, Roma and Traveller’s, will visit the Traveller’s remaining outside the evicted Dale Farm site. The objective of the visit is to establish how the javascript:void(0)situation at Dale Farm has developed since Basildon Councils costly eviction this time last year.

Last year’s £7M mass eviction of Dale Farm Travellers site resulted in approximately 200-400 men, women and children being made homeless.
Many of the families made homeless from the land they owned or rented at Dale Farm returned to the area and have, for the last year, been living either on the side of the privately owned road leading into Dale Farm, or on the authorised site at Oak Lane, which is adjacent to Dale Farm. Numbers of caravans vary, but typically there are between 20-30 caravans on the road into Dale Farm. Conditions are very poor. There are no toilets. Fresh water is only available from taps on the authorised site and residents complain about the number of rats.
A year on and little has changed for the evicted Traveller families. In July they were issued with further eviction notices from Basildon Council. Meanwhile concern has been expressed by the British Red Cross regarding the health of Travellers as a result of the major excavation works on the nearby evicted site. The Environment Agency has also recently conducted tests on the site for asbestos and hydro-carbons, both pollutants which are highly dangerous to public health. It should be noted that the Irish Traveller Movement in Britain (ITMB) have submitted a planning application for 15 permanent residential pitches on vacant non-Green Belt land owned by the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) at Gardiners Way in Basildon.
Schedule

The visit will start at 11.00am, when the APPG for Gypsies, Roma and Travellers, lead by Lord Avebury and Andy Slaughter MP; the Shadow Minister for Justice, will arrive at Dale Farm and meet the residents, Red Cross and other people working on the site. This will be followed by a tour of the site. The visit is scheduled to end at 12.30am.