One year after eviction, the saga of Dale Farm is far from over

From the Guardian

On a potholed road, in front of a field of grazing ponies, a washing machine was shaking through its load. Resting on a pallet next to a generator perched on an old office chair, it belonged to one of the caravans huddled along the edge of Oak Lane, the road that used to lead to Dale Farm.

It was here that one of the biggest – and most disruptive – evictions in Britain in recent years played out among chaotic scenes a year ago on Friday. But 12 months on it is clear that the eviction of the unauthorised Travellers' site near Basildon in Essex is far from finished.

About 80 families were removed from the site after a decade-long legal battle on 19 October last year, but many have not gone far. Approximately 20 caravans are parked on the road with no running water or mains electricity, and around the same number have squeezed on to the pitches on the legal Travellers' site next door.

Only about 10 families have found new pitches elsewhere in the country, according to former residents. "They've ruined everyone's lives and for what," said Noreen Sheridan, speaking inside her own illegally parked caravan. "A few metres? It cost millions and they have just created a bomb site. We haven't gone anywhere."

The site that used to house them is now an unlovely wasteland punctuated by carved-up hardstanding and the detritus of the eviction: a sofa with its innards torn out, a smashed ping pong table, an array of broken light-fittings.

A small amount of asbestos has been found and dealt with, according to the council, and the Environment Agency is due to report at the end of the month on whether the eviction uncovered pollutants. Tony Ball, the leader of Basildon council, acknowledges that it is far from the greenfield site that was promised by the council and specified by the court order to remove the caravans.

But he defended the eviction – which cost more than £7m, including policing costs – and promised the land would be returned to a greenfield site. "We would have preferred not to have to do [the eviction] but it was the right thing to do, as the council has a duty to uphold the law" he said. "There is no doubt the site is not how I would like it, it is a bit of a mess, but I am determined that in the future it will become what people recognise as a green field site."

The Dale Farm site belongs to the Travellers who lived there, but as it was greenbelt land they had no right to live there. Now they may lose the land altogether: Ball insists that once the exact costs have been determined, the council will be pushing to recover the money from the evicted Travellers. If they are unable to pay, the land will be seized.

He also insisted the council would continue to push to make sure former residents at the side of the road ended their "illegal" encampment and said the council believed many of the unauthorised caravans belonged to new residents who had not lived at Dale Farm. Eviction orders on all roadside caravans have been served – and ignored. The council is now considering its next move.

Morale among former residents is low and many refuse to talk about the day of the eviction, when large teams of bailiffs, backed up by police officers, broke into the barricaded site at dawn as cars and tyres were set on fire, while masked activists threw missiles at police and locked themselves to gates.

"Dale Farm wasn't much to look at but it was beautiful at heart," said 24-year-old Mary Sheridan, whose son is six months old. "Tony Ball said the eviction would be peaceful but it was like we were in hell. They completely and utterly ruined everyone's lives. My son's life was ruined before it began."

Others on the site said prejudice against Travellers has got worse since the eviction. One woman, who did not want to be named, described trying to return a faulty buggy to a local shop to be told that refunds did not have to be given to anyone who lived on Oak Lane. She would not let her two-year-old daughter out of the caravan because she feared for her health, she added. "I'm going through that much disinfectant trying to keep things clean, but the children around here are always getting sick since the eviction. It's horrible."

Some members of the settled community see things differently. One resident, who did not want to be named, was happy the eviction had gone ahead. "Of course I'm pleased, everybody around here is, it has gone on for too long," she said. "It is horrible living here and if I could sell and leave tomorrow I would. It must be even worse for them now so I don't know why they don't travel."

According to Candy Sheridan, a Traveller campaigner and long-term supporter of Dale Farm, it is increasingly difficult for Travellers to travel. At the Conservative conference the communities secretary, Eric Pickles, promised new powers to eject Travellers from private sites before they had settled, she said, adding that councils had become emboldened by Basildon's actions. "Basildon's shameful use of planning law has given the wrong message, essentially that Gypsies and Travellers will not be tolerated here in the same way Roma are not in Europe," she said.

A planning application is now under way for a small 12-pitch site three miles from Dale Farm at Gardiner's Road, and a decision is expected in November. "We are saying to Basildon, OK you upheld planning law but what now?" she said. "They have to acknowledge the Traveller community in Basildon, not just hope they can erase them with another winter."