Dale Farm: New Year, Same Old Problems - Essex

From the Advocacy Project

It is the beginning of a new year – over a year on from the eviction of the Irish Traveller families at Dale Farm – and it is clearer than ever that Basildon Council’s aggressive, multi-million pound approach to the situation was a waste of time and has only caused more problems for the Travellers and for the local settled residents in Crays Hill. I am not sure exactly what Tony Ball and his colleagues expected to happen. Did they expect that the Travellers would just disappear?

Michelle Sheridan with her son, Tom in their caravan as they are leaving their yard at Dale Farm after the eviction. Michelle now lives on the road leading up to her bulldozed property with her four children, as do most of her extended family (including her elderly, infirm mother),
Michelle Sheridan with her son, Tom in their caravan as they are leaving their yard at Dale Farm after the eviction. Michelle now lives on the road leading up to her bulldozed property with her four children, as do most of her extended family (including her elderly, infirm mother),

The residents of Dale Farm have always been very clear in their meetings with the Council. They filled out endless homeless applications, detailed forms about their personal circumstances and explained face-to-face that they have nowhere else to go and that life on the road is no longer tenable (and is particularly dangerous for the many children, elderly and disabled residents who have settled there). Basildon Council members claim to have reviewed their personal circumstances and have deemed the residents officially homeless by the Council’s standards. Therefore, Council members knew how many small children and elderly, ill and disabled people lived there. They knew that if evicted and forced onto the road (where they would most likely be moved on every 24 hours), it would be impossible for the Travellers to access reliable and consistent healthcare, education, and water/toilet facilities. By evicting the residents from their homes, what choice did Basildon Council give them but to stay (where they have established relationships to doctors, schools, some facilities) as long as possible?

So this is exactly what has happened. The Dale Farm Travellers are still there. They are either now living on the road leading up to their bulldozed properties or temporarily taking refuge on the neighbouring yards on the legal side of Oak Lane. No matter what Tony Ball wants you to believe, these are the same Travellers he forcibly evicted 15 months ago. In the 3 years leading up to the eviction, I personally visited the residents on every single yard on numerous occasions, and these are the same people I still visit today. Of course, Tony Ball doesn’t want to admit that these are the same people. The fact that they are still there, living in squalor with no reliable access to water, sewage, electricity, proves that the residents were telling the truth when they said they had nowhere else to go. Even more worrying to Mr Ball, their presence proves not only that his eviction campaign was a complete and utter failure but that it has left a brewing humanitarian and environmental crisis in its aftermath.

The Environment Agency has visited and examined the site and is due to report on the level of contamination any day (the most likely hazards are asbestos, leaking sewerage, and rat infestation). These environmental hazards are not only a threat to the former Dale Farm Travellers, but also residents on the adjacent legal yards and the settled Crays Hill residents on Oak Road, which backs up to the site. These local residents are entirely dissatisfied with the outcome of the Council’s “eviction”, so much so that their most outspoken, pro-eviction representative, Len Gridley, is now teaming up with the Dale Farm Travellers to sue Basildon Council.

It is no big surprise that the forced eviction at Dale Farm offered no solutions (long or short term) to anyone’s problems. Local councils cannot just forcibly evict people with no consideration for their welfare, with the hope at best to push their problems onto the next council. Surely, if councils won’t, the UK government needs to take a wider, longer term view on this issue. The obvious solution is to address the shortage of sites, which will address the needs of an ethnic minority group currently without adequate access to housing, healthcare, education or basic services and, in turn, decrease the number of illegal encampments that negatively impact on local settled residents.

The legacy of Dale Farm and this botched eviction may serve as a lesson to other councils and may pave the way for longer-term decision-making. Basildon Council, however, needs to learn from its own mistakes, stop threatening yet another eviction, and find a long-term solution for the Travellers and local residents. Planning permission has been granted for a small, 15 pitch site in Basildon near Dale Farm. This is certainly a step in the right direction and this site will hopefully become a permanent, stable home to some of the most vulnerable Travellers from Dale Farm and throughout the district. This does not come close to addressing the current need in the area. It is time now for Basildon Council to abandon strategies that are not working and to look to solutions that can actually benefit its constituents.
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It seems strange that in the five months that have passed since their eviction, in some ways, everything is different for the Dale Farm Travellers but, in other ways, nothing has changed. The home they had made over the past ten years is unrecognisable: Basildon Council has dug up every yard and has intentionally left piles of rubble blocking any possible entrance point into the site. Bunding (enormous mounds of earth and deep ditches) on the road makes it impossible for residents who are legally allowed to remain to get their trailers anywhere near the three legal pitches. (Lorraine Brown, Basildon Council’s legal representative, told these residents that they would need a helicopter to re-enter their yards.) It has been left resembling a bombsite and has now become a prime site for fly tipping. It seems impossible to imagine that Basildon Council has any intention of returning it to green fields as it promised (particularly since none of the eviction budget was allocated for this purpose).

Dale Farm residents, however, did not just disappear after the eviction as Basildon Council hoped. The majority remain just past the boundary of the Dale Farm site on the legal Traveller site at Oak Lane. The conditions under which they are living are far worse than before. Some have been allowed temporary refuge on relatives’ legal yards with limited access to amenities (electricity, water, toilets) but the majority are forced to live alongside the main road of the site without even these basic necessities. Spirits are low and tensions high and these hazardous conditions are taking their toll. Both the UN and the Red Cross have visited the site and have submitted reports to Basildon Council detailing the environmental health implications of living under these conditions. Opponents to the Travellers and the local press often claim that the Dale Farm residents have other places to live – but having seen the post-eviction reality at Dale Farm first-hand, I find it difficult to believe that anyone would choose to live there, if they had anywhere else to go.

Their lives have been turned upside down and, to make matters worse, they are facing all of the same problems they were trying to tackle before the eviction. The Council is still refusing to engage in constructive negotiations to find a long-term solution to its problem, despite the Travellers’ eagerness to work with the Council to find a suitable alternative site. This week they not only lost again in the courts (this time they lost their appeal arguing that Basildon Council should be required to provide culturally appropriate accommodation), but they were also served with Planning Contravention Orders requiring them to leave the legal site within 21 days. The Travellers know that it is only a matter of time before they are again facing an eviction, and the Council has still not addressed the residents’ very real concerns that consistent and reliable access to schools and healthcare whilst on the road will not be possible.


So, where do we go from here? I don’t believe it is too late to find a long-term solution. Council Leader Tony Ball has stated “the council accepts that it will need to provide additional pitches to cater for the growth of the traveller population who live legally in the borough and it will be working with the travellers to do this.” This is an important declaration. So, CL Ball, is there a willingness on the part of the Council to engage with the Dale Farm Travellers who have been made homeless by the eviction and have a clear need for pitches? Wouldn’t this serve Basildon’s interests better than further costly enforcement action that has no guarantee of solving the problems of either side?