Dale Farm Travellers face eviction again - Essex

From the Guardian

Travellers living at the side of the road by the former Dale Farm site are set to be evicted for a second time after Basildon council in Essex voted to take "direct action" to remove the families who remain.

About 20 families, many with children, have been living in squalid conditions with no running water or mains electricity since the high-profile £7m eviction in October.

Councillors voted for the action on Tuesday evening, but steps will not be taken until a judicial review lodged by Travellers over earlier enforcement notices is resolved.

Tony Ball, leader of the council, said the decision was in line with the council's determination to uphold the law. "Nothing has changed in our attitude to dealing with illegal development or protecting the green belt, and we remain a local authority that will continue to deal with law-breaking and serious breaches of planning control," he said.

The Dale Farm site, which housed about 80 families for 10 years, has been reduced to rubble, with rubbish strewn across the six-acre area next to a legal Travellers' site.

After a 10-year legal battle, police and bailiffs moved on to the site at dawn on 19 October. Travellers and protesters put up scaffolding and barricades and there were violent scenes as police used Tasers on protesters and rocks were hurled at police. Protesters who chained themselves to barricades were forcibly removed and several arrests were made.

Many of the Travellers dispersed but others pulled their caravans on to the legal Oak Lane site, which is now over capacity, or on to the road that leads to Dale Farm, because they said they had nowhere else to go.

Mary Flynn, a former Dale Farm resident, said a shortage of Traveller sites meant there was little choice for those evicted from Dale Farm.

"The way we're treated, it's like we're not human beings – we're seen as a problem that they need to get rid of," she said. "There are more Travellers than there are sites, so where do they expect us to live? It's so hard to tell my children that we're never going to get to go home."

Ball said: "Local residents expect us to be consistent and treat everyone the same, and that it is exactly what we are doing at Oak Lane."

Earlier this month, after many years of requests for new sites to house Travellers, Basildon council's planning committee passed a planning application for 15 pitches to accommodate some of the most vulnerable homeless Traveller families in Basildon at a new, smaller site at nearby Gardiners Way.

According to the Irish Traveller Movement in Britain (ITMB), which made the application, it is the first site approved by the council since official planning needs assessments in 2006 stated the need for between 157 and 163 pitches for Gypsy and Traveller families in Basildon by 2011. Ball said it could take two years to develop the new site.

see aslo: The Telegraph - Second bid to evict Dale Farm Travellers

ITV - Council in bid to evict Travellers

London Evening Standard - Council vows 'direct action' to evict displaced Travellers

Loughborough Echo - New bid to evict Travellers planned

Irish Times - Essex council to move Travellers

Independent.ie - Council plans new push to evict Travellers who moved on from massive Dale Farm site

Liverpool Echo - New bid to evict Travellers planned

The BBC - Basildon Council plans Traveller removal next to Dale Farm

The Morning Star - Dale Farm travellers face more evictions