Council behind Dale Farm evictions backs new sites for Traveller families - Essex

From the Guardian

In a surprise turnaround following the Dale Farm eviction in 2011, Basildon council is supporting moving Traveller families to a proposed new permanent site. The land in Gardiners Way South would provide 15 pitches and is being championed by the Irish Traveller Movement in Britain.

Yvonne MacNamara, chief executive of the movement, said: "The site is perfect: well designed, ecologically sound and hopefully, by the time we draw down funding and do the paperwork, it will take between 12 to 24 months to get ready at a cost of just under a £1m."

Basildon council has been keen to stress that there has been no rapprochement to speak of since the violent and ugly scenes of the October 2011 eviction. A spokesman said: "This is a completely separate issue, and Dale Farm didn't and couldn't play any role in the planning decision which was unanimous and didn't break down along party lines."

Should this support continue it will form the bedrock of an application by the Irish Traveller movement for funding from the Homes and Communities Agency. The movemennt then plans to work in partnership with Home Space Sustainable Accommodation to deliver what is considered to be a model Traveller site using the vacant agency land at Gardiners Way South.

The site will become the first to be approved by Basildon council since official planning needs assessments in 2006 stated that between 157 and 163 pitches were required for Gypsy and Traveller families in Basildon by 2011. The council may well have an eye on the March 2013 deadline for completing its new assessment of Gypsy and Traveller accommodation needs.

Cynics would point to the fact that if it is successful in its latest roadside evictions (up to 80 families from Dale Farm parked up on adjacent roads) then it may not have to include these families in the needs assessment at all.

Former Dale Farm resident Kathleen McCarthy, who campaigned relentlessly for a peaceful settlement to avoid the council's costly £11m eviction said: "If only they could have approved a few sites like this last year, then there would have been no need to put us out of our homes and on to the roadside. It's a step in the right direction and it shows there is an alternative to evictions. This is what we always asked for."

Ellie Taylor of the Traveller Solidarity Network warned: "The site will only meet some of the need. Around 400 adults and children were made homeless during the Dale Farm eviction, and in the meantime Basildon council has approved a second round of evictions against the families they made homeless in October 2011, planning to move them on from the private road that they own and have been living on since the first eviction.

"Rather than provide the community with a temporary site ahead of the development of the Gardiners Lane site, the council is choosing another confrontational and costly eviction. This will push families with young children and vulnerable elderly relatives into lay-bys and supermarket car parks."

The network claim 80 Traveller families evicted from Dale Farm have been living in squalid conditions in caravans parked on nearby Oak Lane, without adequate sanitation, heating, or electricity supplies.

"I said after Dale Farm that we would work with Travellers," said council leader Tony Ball, "and while I welcome them going through due process [for] Gardiners Way, it is irrelevant to this enforcement action.

"The site could take two years to develop and is still subject to funding approvals. There will also be an allocation policy in place that will allocate place on local need, so it should not be seen as a solution to the Oak Lane issue, because it is not."

The council's cabinet will consider a report on the Irish Traveller movement's funding bid on 7 February.