Landowner threatens to sell farm to Gypsies just to spite locals - Essex

From the Essex Chronicle

A COMMUNITY dispute has spiralled out of control after a landowner threatened to sell 20 acres of his land to Travellers – to spite his neighbours.

Bryn Chittenden, 46, made the declaration after becoming fed up with his neighbours' continued efforts to stop him building a barn on his field.

The father-of-two has advertised the sale online and even told residents that he plans to take a full-page advertisement out in a magazine and website for gypsies and Travellers.

"If you think I'm a problem – wait till a hundred Travellers turn up in their caravans," warned Mr Chittenden, who bought the agricultural land in St Lawrence Bay, on the Blackwater Estuary in the Dengie, five years ago for £100,000.

The row between Mr Chittenden and residents of the nearby private Scarletts Estate exploded last week when the landowner took to Facebook to promote his intentions.

A message on the St Lawrence Bay community page read: "The land will also be advertised outside of Facebook, including a full page advert in the Travellers' Times, a magazine for Gypsies and Travellers, which I doubt many of you will get."

Mr Chittenden added: "I have had a couple of offers for the land already but some things in life are more important than money, so I will end up taking less just for the satisfaction of watching travellers take over.

"If anyone disapproves of this I will willingly supply the names and addresses of the members of Scarletts Estate responsible for creating this situation."

Mr Chittenden, who worked as a print manager for the Daily Mail for 20 years, also plans to carve up his land into 50 by 50 square foot parcels, which would create 350 plots.

Nearby residents are furious with Mr Chittenden's proposals and fear the creation of another Dale Farm – formerly Europe's largest illegal Traveller camp in Crays Hill, near Billericay – on their doorstep.

"It's a real concern because by publishing the land on the internet and in Traveller magazines there's a real chance that people will turn up and start to live on the land illegally," said one nearby resident, who did want to be named.

"Once they get here it is almost impossible to get them to move on.

"It's happened here before and it's happened in Essex many times.

"We don't want to live next door to another Dale Farm."

But the residents of Scarletts – a nine-house estate on a private road – are powerless to intervene after Mr Chittenden barred them from purchasing the land.

"Whether the land is sold as a whole or into plots there will be a restriction, which will be legally documented, that no resident or property owner of Scarletts Estate, or any relation of the same, will, at any time, either directly or indirectly, be allowed to purchase any part of this land," he posted on Facebook.

Mr Chittenden, a terrierman for the Essex Farmers and Union Hunt, later told the Chronicle: "I've never wanted to develop the land, I just want to graze some animals there.

"But every time I try and do anything with the land they oppose any changes. They have made my life hell and now I will sell it to Travellers.

"Even if they offered me a million pounds I would not sell it to them. But if Travellers offered me £100,000, it's all theirs."

The land is designated agricultural land and Maldon District Council has plastered posters around the site warning against attempting to park caravans in the field.

The orange posters say that "the stationing of caravans without planning permission" is banned, as is "motor car and motorcycle racing" and the stationing of "any moveable structure" without planning permission.

A spokesman for Maldon District Council said: "The landowner can sell his land to whoever he wants. But we are clear this is agricultural land and it is clear what it can and cannot be used for."

see also: The Telegraph - Land owner seeks revenge on neighbours by selling it to Travellers

The Daily Star - GYPSY REVENGE OF BARN ROW DAD