We need to maintain a constant presence at Dale Farm now the eviction is scheduled to begin. Please sign up for text alerts, at: https://smsalerts.tachanka.org/dalefarm/. Your long term presence is encouraged.
We have regular ACTIVITY DAYS at Dale Farm. Contact dale.farm@btinternet.com if you wish to take part.
If you would like to form a local group, or otherwise get involved, see the list of local groups below, or contact us at tsn[at]lists.aktivix.org. We also have meetings which you are welcome to join. Send us an email to find out about the next meeting.
You can publicise our facebook group.
If you want to receive regular updates about the campaign to resist the eviction of Dale Farm, you can subscribe to the announcements list here.
If you want to get more involved in organising, you can subscribe to our planning list here.
Become a human rights monitor in case of eviction at any traveller site. Find out more here.
We need people to visit the site and help with paperwork, and people to help put on film nights in their area. Email savedalefarm@gmail.com if you can lend a hand.
Hold an info-night in your community
In order to build a strong movement for Traveller rights, people across the country need to be aware and active about the situation at Dale Farm. A great way to make sure this happens in your local community is to hold a film night with films, discussion and/or speakers. We’d be happy to help you organise an info-night in your community- get in touch at savedalefarm@gmail.com and check out the resources for local groups for leaflets, info-sheets and films.
Camp Constant
Friends and supporters of Dale Farm from across the country and from abroad have come to live at Dale Farm to provide around the clock support to the community and resistance to the eviction. If you might be able to come down to be part of this camp, please get in touch, and sign up to the text service.
Sleeping space is available in caravans and residents homes but we encourage you to bring a tent, and you are welcome to sleep over anytime. Please bring a sleeping bag if you can, and a roll mat is highly recommended especially since most of the tent space is on hard ground. We need people to actively resist the eviction, be human rights/legal obervers, coordinate outreach and media and much more.
The welcome pack is available here (in three formats, all versions have the same content):Dale Farm Welcome pdf or Dale Farm Welcome odt or Dale Farm Welcome word doc – if you have trouble opening any of these for any reason, please email savedalefarm@gmail.com The welcome packs contain information on Dale Farm and the political context of the current eviction, Camp Constant and what to bring, Traveller history, and legal advice for activists.
Writing to your MP
We need to take urgent action to stop the eviction of hundreds of people from their homes. We have already seen the current government commit significant financial support for the eviction, so we think that lobbying them has quite significant limitations at this point. Our main “ask” of supporters is to come to Camp Constant once it is set up in order to take direct action to stop the eviction, or enable others to do so. However, if you would like to flag up this issue to your MP, there is currently an Early Day Motion (No. 1729) speaking out against evictions of Traveller Sites. Here is some useful information you can use when you write to your MP.
Local Groups
If you don’t see a local group near you, please start your own, and let us know by emailing savedalefarm[at]gmail.com!
Dale Farm Solidarity 
I am a US military veteran and I can not believe the way the Travellers are treated. If they technically own the land and there is nothing else you can really do with it, then why not just approve the planning so they can stay there. Seems like a good plan or is it not because you refuse to give them the equal rights they deserve? Shame on the UK! I think in protest I will start a campaign to keep americans from traveling there and spending our money there!
Me and my girls were in tears watching the eviction.
How can any decent society treat people like this?
I don’t think councils or government would dare treat any other minority group like this.
Shame on Basildon council, how do you sleep making little children and families homeless in this brutal ugly way.
We pray for you but wish we could do more x.
hello.
i have just watched the eviction on tv and would like to send my love to all people affected.18 million spent to evict families? money well spent basildon council !!! its an absolute disgrace !
keep your heads high !! all the best xx
Am disgusted that the Council achieved a ban on media coverage in these last days, and – worse – that the media so meekly agrred. It just shows that the media don’t give a b….r really, all they care about is a good story. One minute the media’s full of it, next, nothing. Typical!
All the best to everyone. I like to think it wouldn’t happen in Scotland!
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the travellers at Dale Farm asked for 6 million pounds to sell up and leave their land, yet Basildon council will spend 18 million pounds of taxpayers money to evict them. has Basildon council reflected this in price increases in the council tax this year? were the residents and taxpayers of Basildon asked if they were happy to pay this extra 12 million pounds?
The council were offering the travellers what their land was worth, but the greedy folk turned it down because all they want from the council is a get rich quick scheme. Well, the council and the public aren’t fools. Yes, we are happy to pay the £18 million just out of principal. We make laws in this country to be abided by all and if it costs the taxpayer money to uphold them, then so be it, because in the long run the council tax payer wins by having the travellers off their properties and nearby green areas. Perhaps if the travellers had come up with a nuch more realistic figure the council may have agreed to it. And one minute the travellers say they have nowhere to go if they get evicted, but if they had been given £6 million they would have miraculously found somewhere else? Money talks eh?
I watched the Dispatches programme regarding Dale Farm last night and it opened my eyes up even further. In my opinion it geve an honest and fair account of both sides of the argument. I am more convinced than ever though now that all you travellers want is everything the ordinary hard working person of this country has, although you want AND get it for free. You want free land, so do the ordinary people. You want free houses, education, medicine, amenities,etc and so do the ordinary folks. Unfortunately the country would fall on it’s knees if that happened because the government has to pay for our country from the taxes that decent folk pay. Where else do they get the money to pay for things.? Everybody would like it all for free, but we know that can’t happen, but you greedy lot think yiou can sponge off society and we’ll pay your share. I don’t bloody think so. I also read Joe Bloggs’ comment about us do-gooders. If it weren’t for bloody do-gooders your cause would be a non starter. It’s do-gooders who are fighting for you. And then further down the comments page I read another woman complaining about the school Ofsted reports in London. Is this another thing that’s not good enough for you spongers? It’s good enough for the rest of the country. For folk who don’t put anything into the system, you’ve got a hell of a lot of complaints about it. I would also like to know where you all get the money to buy land, since one of the men in the programme bought a piece of land for £100,000 according to Dispatches programme. I don’t think casual employent, whether it is tax free or not would get someone anything like £100,000. Unless we win the lottery we’ll never see that ammount any time soon. And that selfish, gloating woman who was screaming and laughing hysterically in the camera after coming out of court when she heard that our country has to foot the bill for to evict them costing £18 million, is an absolute disgrace. She should be thoroughly ashamed. I also saw on the programme that another woman had been offered a four bedroom house. Hmph! Some folk wait a lifetime to get a house with four bedrooms and she turned up her nose at it. When asked why she said she didn’t want the confines of a house and would feel claustrophobic in a house. So why don’t you keep travelling then?Isn’t that what travellers do? The mess that you leave behind is a pain for everyone to clean anyway. Your children use the fields as a toilet. When asked if they had a toilet in the caravan and did they use it, some young traveller girls said, “Yes we have one but Eww, God no. Imagine cooking where you cook your dinner.” Breaking news again. Most council house toilet are right next to their bathroom too, we don’t actually cook in the bathroom though. They are built in the same manner as a caravan with toilet being next to the kitchen. Unfortunately we don’t all have the luxury of a spacious mansion. And if caravans are not built to your requirements why not live in a house ? It’s you that buys them. And surely anyone who took a pride in themselves and their home/caravan would be able to look around their surroundings and see that the sites you live on are an absolute eyesore with washings hanging out on the main roads for all to see. Dogs running wild, which we would never be allowed, rubbish left lying. You lot have no pride in yourselves.You eep ranting on about being a proud culture. Yes, you may be proud of your heritage but you have no pride in anything else. Pride comes from self discipline and self respect. pride comes from working hard and achieving something. How can you be proud when you live like animals? How can you be proud when you take from people who work hard to get the same things you have or want.? You also said in the programme that you just wanted land to live on where you can just all be together as a family and want nothing from us. No police, no hassles, just to live in yoiur own community and not integrate with the rest of us. I’m afraid there’s laws against that. You’re being racist by not wanting to integrate. You only want to integrate when you’re asking us for employment on the side, to buy from our shops, to use our education, hospitals, and anything else that you gain from.It’s not us that’s being racist. We live with other cultures and ethnic groups every day of our lives. It’s you lot who don’t want to mix and are bing racist. Stop switching everything round to suit your own needs and blaming evveryone else in the world for your greed. By the way, I don’t think yiou lot know yourselves what you want. Do you want to travel or do you want to settle, which is it? You are a thouroughlyselfish lot and I hope you don’t win your case. It’ll be worth the £18 million.
Excuse the typos in my last statement. I was typing fast so as not to forget what I wanted to say since i did have rather a lot to say. Also, it may sound like I disagreed with Joe Bloggs when I said about the do-gooders, but actually I meant to sound as though I agreed with him It’s just been badly worded. Sorry Joe. Another thing I wanted to add was that in the Dispatches progamme the council offered to buy land from the travellers which was in reality only worth £120,000 and the travellers were asking for £6 million. Don’t make me laugh. When are they going to get into the real world. Greed beyond belief.
the only message I can give to the peope at Dale Farm is that I hope you win and stay on your land.
Love and peace
illiad
You are disgusting. You are talking about real people here. No matter what your views on the situation you should keep filthy and shameful talk like that to yourself.
Just feeling so sad really, particularly after reading the daily mail guy you have got making his ‘opinions’ felt so heartily. I feel so sorry for you mate. Love the way you judge anyone who supports the travellers as ‘middle class’ ‘do gooders’ – know what mate? This is what they said about all human rights supporters, from the people who were against slavery to the Germans who thought that maybe herding gypsys and Jews and Trade Unionists was wrong.
Hey, you can live in your stereotypical world. I don’t want to live in it. Give these people a chance to live their lives outside your Capitalist obedient idea of life.
From a part Mic Mac first nations person. I just hope that one day, you will realise that there is more to life than ownership and the ruling of a faceless group of people who make the rules.
Family, love and Peace to the people fighting for another way to live. You are telling me that there isn’t a better, prouder way to deal with this situation? You have no imagination. I pity you.
Yes, we’d all love to live in an ideal world where we can just live off the land, we don’t have to work or pay taxes, or contribute anything for the benefit to the rest of society, but unfortunately we don’t live in such a world. Society has learned that it doesn’t work that way. Nobody gets a hurl for nothing. We have to pay for the right to a house, land, amenities, so why shouldn’t everyone? Our world may be stereotypical, dull, and capitalist, but it’s us capitalists who pay for the folks who don’t want to chip in with the rest of us. Why should you live for free and expect us to pay for it ? It really makes me angry that my husbsand has been going to work every day since he left school , has to get up early to get there, then have a third of it removed in taxes before he even sees what he’s left with. On top of that we pay council tax.Then we pay our mortgage, which is a lot of money, as well as keep five of a family. We pay a lot of money to live on this Earth so why should your part of the Earth be free? Get in the real world and do a proper days work. Instead of fighting for the right to quat, you should be fighting for the right for the rest of us poor sods who struggle to live and work bloody hard for the privilege. You should be out there fighting for decent housing, and for things that affect all of us, not just the greedy few who want everything for nothing. You’re right. I pity us too. We’re the poor sods who have to support the travellers and pay to clean up after them. I also pay for all of my dental bills and prescriptions. There’s no such thing as a free ride for me and my family.
from oxford dictionary :
People often believe that they should use the indefinite article an in front of words like historic, horrific, or hotel. Are they right or wrong? Should you say ‘an historic event’ or ‘a historic event’?
An is the form of the indefinite article that is used before a spoken vowel sound: it doesn’t matter how the written word in question is actually spelled. So, we say ‘an honour’, ‘an hour’, or ‘an heir’, for example, because the initial letter ‘h’ in all three words is not actually pronounced. By contrast we say ‘a hair’ or ‘a horse’ because, in these cases, the ‘h’ is pronounced.
Let’s go back to those three words that tend to cause problems: historic, horrific, and hotel. If hotel was pronounced without its initial letter ‘h’ (i.e. as if it were spelled ‘otel’), then it would be correct to use an in front of it. The same is true of historic and horrific. If horrific was pronounced ‘orrific’ and historic was pronounced ‘istoric’ then it would be appropriate to refer to ‘an istoric occasion’ or ‘an orrific accident’. In the 18th and 19th centuries, people often did pronounce these words in this way.
Today, though, these three words are generally pronounced with a spoken ‘h’ at the beginning and so it’s now more logical to refer to ‘a hotel’, ‘a historic event’, or ‘a horrific accident’.
as for no grey area : ” A historic barn was demolished this year so that up to 70 houses could be built on green belt land once owned by Billericay school. Basildon council recently passed plans to build more than 500 new homes on the site of an old pool in Gloucester Park, a recreation ground in the town.
Im sure they will travel, hopefully to a schoolfield or a carpark where they will actually cause a real problem for you “so called” civilised people. 🙂
A well known grammar rule says that we should use “an” before vowel sounds; for example, an accident, an item, an hour. We use “a” otherwise: a book, a hotel, a university.
Notice that we say an hour, not a hour. The choice of a or an is based upon the sound of the word, not the spelling. Hour sounds as if it starts with a vowel sound (ow); hence, we use an.
Following this rule, we would say a historic, not an historic because (for most speakers) historic doesn’t start with a vowel sound.
tut tut. you are not a div are you?
Tut starts a new sentence and therefore should start with a capital letter. It should also have an apostrophe and not a period between the second tut and the word you. 🙂 But nobody likes a smart arse.
A historic barn was demolished this year so that up to 70 houses could be built on green belt land once owned by Billericay school. Basildon council recently passed plans to build more than 500 new homes on the site of an old pool in Gloucester Park, a recreation ground in the town.
Is it true all the residents have already left, and the plan is that the only ones left on the eviction day will be the people who have joined this protest? Is that the idea?
Its been rather dangerous letting just anyone in anyway – without CRB checks – could be a whole load of paedophiles helping Vanessa Redgrave on the ‘save the children’ ticket – they flock to anything with children at the forefront, don’t you think that was irresponsible ….
I am very willing to debate with someone if they are willing to y’know… debate!
I have asked you questions several times over which might lead to a discussion, but if you don’t want to engage with that process, then I’ll gladly get on with my life while you get on with your monologue.
Are you a mason? cause,,,with your distorted and disturbing views to life!!if not_ whos going to come and save you when the shit hits the fan, the new world order agenda will change all we once new as the police state takes more control ,i support the travellers but your one twisted little man , bet you watch bbc and eastenders ,wake up you nob!
Lets hope that your support is plentiful come eviction day.
Is that so?
“They’re not even proper gyppos”
so i take it you really want them to TRAVEL. so you WANT them to be parked on your schoolfields, car parks and common grounds? think about it, where are they going to go if they are not on a site? They are not going to go into houses.
THE HOLY BIBLE SPEAKS OF THE BRITS!!!
The following bible describes the British people to a perfect “T”! it is so close, it’s amazing!
Holy Bible NIV ROMANS 1:30
“slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;”
What more could possibly sum up the racist Gypsy hating British Nazi thugs than this!
Thanks for the definition Joe Bloggs. I’m sure you’re not being deliberately obtuse, so I can only assume that I didn’t explain myself clearly enough.
What I mean is, for example, that just because certain black people refer to each other as “nigger”, or certain gay people refer to each other as “queer” (as a way of reclaiming a word of perscution), it is generally considered not socially acceptable (and often illegal) for non-members of those groups to use the same words of persecution to refer to them.
Ergo, your use of the word “diddycoy” in the context you are using it is derogatory, perscutory, and quite likely ILLEGAL!
I would have thought that as someone who apparently believes in the rightness of the law above all else, you would respect ALL laws including laws relating to incitemnt to racial hatred? Obviously not.
Why are you not following the law, Joe Bloggs, if you like it so much? “People should obey the law” has been one of your main lines of argument on here, and yet here you are, demonstrating your own hypocrisy.
(Now note that I myself do not believe in the rightness of the law above all else, but then I’m not the one undermining my own arguments by demonstrably breaking laws while in the same breath telling others to follow them!)
Perhaps you’d like to read about racially motivated crimes, as defined by The Government? If so:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/YoungPeople/CrimeAndJustice/TypesOfCrime/DG_10027721
Or are you just another “one law for them and one law for us” person, apparently like the travellers you dislike so much?
so how is this the fault of the ones on the illegal site? that is just the ones on the legal site, using it as a “base hub” while they travel
12 DAYS AND COUNTING DOWN. NOW WE GET THE GREEN BELT BACK.
Question: Where do the diddycoy go on holiday?
Answer: Only as far as a lawyer can sue the rest of the family for trespass.
Go on, you have to laugh.
the fact you continue to use “diddycoy” towards the irish, means you know fuck all.lol
Indeed, and yet “Joe Bloggs” pooh-poohed my observation that he/she is harbouring seriously xenophobic if not downright fascist views, the likes of which have and do to this day still lead to genocide wherever they are left unchallenged!
Let’s see:
1. Eviction from their homes – check.
2. Disposession of their lands – check.
3. Destruction of their community – check.
4. A convenient derogatory name for a perceived “group” that you can hate against without any personal relationship to the individuals (including children) in that group – check.
Like I said before “Joe Bloggs”, you might as well just call them “niggers” and drop any pretense otherwise – and there you go with your “diddycoy” calling, plain as day for all to see!
Why not just ship them all off to the death camps, Joe Bloggs? You tell me what the difference is between what you are saying and that line of thinking – because as far as I can see, you could barely fit a cigarette paper inbetween them.
What sort of Britain did our ancestors fight and die in two world wars for, when it’s now rather socially acceptable to express these kind of fascist views (don’t even try to deny it “Joe Bloggs”, you are spouting fascism pure and simple) in public?
What on Earth were we trying to protect ourselves from, when we now have home-grown fascism running rife?
Perhaps if you’d answer my question about what it is that you actually NEED Joe Bloggs, we might be able to get to the bottom of all this. But you won’t do that for some reason – probably because to do so would mean that your little racist pogrom might be able to be resolved peacefully.
Here is what I am needing from a so-called civilised society: I am needing physical safety for all members of that society – which could be started by the law acknowledging that all people matter more than any things (ie. property).
I would suggest that as a basis for a peaceful and civilised world, that wouldn’t be such a bad starting point as a “Prime Directive” or whatever you want to call it.
In all honesty, I’m wondering why it isn’t a criminal act to forcibly make anybody homeless, because what sort of so-called “civilised society” stands by and allows people to be forcibly evicted from their homes?
This one does!!
Oh how bloody “Great” our Britain has become, hasn’t it!?
Let’s hope for your own sake that YOU never find yourself in someone else’s imaginary group of “untermenschen”, Joe Bloggs.
As the saying goes: “There but for the grace of God, go I.”
In reply to Joe Bloggs, who said:
“There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
I am trying to find out what it is that you actually need, because I am not getting a clear picture of whatever that is. I am inviting you to help me see and understand your side of things – I am positively desperate to see things from your point of view, if you will assist me in doing so!
Would you be willing to tell me what it is that YOU NEED here, instead of talking about the wrongness of the other party?
Because I already completely understand that you perceive yourself as in the right, and the Dale Farm people as in the wrong. But what I don’t understand is what actual need of yours is not being addressed?
Please consider what I posted before. Are you feeling angry because you want to know that other people will respect the laws that you yourself follow? Do you believe that someone is being given an unfair advantage that you are not being afforded? Are you worried about your house losing value? Are you worried about the safety of your local community? Something else altogether?
I would honestly like to know what need of yours is not being met, and to try to get very specific on that need so that it will be possible to do something to address it, but I can’t do that without you giving me one or two clues as to exactly what it is that you are so angry about.
lol. i read that today. that mans a div
writing about the real world, doesnt mean he lives in it.no newspapers mention that a resident turned up there last week with a firearm. he doesnt mention that the only reason they are illegal, is because the law changed around them.. If the government hadnt scrapped the caravan act, there is no doubt that this half of dale farm would either be legal or the travellers would have been offered an alternative site (instead of council houses and flats). they would never be allowed to generalise a larger minority group in this way.
I’m hearing that you need reassuring that the laws you abide by apply equally to everyone, and that you are frustrated when it seems that one group of people may be getting special treatment when you are not.
It seems to me like you are mostly needing fairness, integrity, peace of mind, and safety for your community. Does that sound accurate to you?
I’m still curious though: do you think that spending the millions of pounds that will be spent in order to evict these people is likely to result in you getting these needs of yours met?
Would you be willing to consider other strategies for meeting your needs that do not involve making people homeless, and might work out a whole lot less expensive too?
For example, what if the same unfair advantage you appear to perceive as being given to the people at Dale Farm was evened out, so that it applied to everyone, including yourself, so that everybody’s fundamental need for somewhere to live was the main driving force behind the decision making processes which govern such things as whether they can legally build a roof over their heads?
I’m interested to know if you think that there is another more important consideration at stake here, which trumps that of everybody needing somewhere to live?
OK, I’ll try again. Please excuse my previous ranting Joe Bloggs – I am working on trying to understand where you are coming from, but it is difficult for me to do so, because I feel very despondant and frustrated when I think about families being made homeless and/or destitute for any reason, really.
(If worrying about homeless families makes me a “do-gooder” in your eyes, then I stand guilty as charged. I myself have a young family, and can’t think of many things more terrifying than the prospect of homelessness, destitution and the loss of my extended support community, especially all three at the same time. I feel certain that such a blow – should it ever happen to me – would undoubtedly result in me having a nervous breakdown to say the least!)
So, I’m curious as to what your actual need is here. What are you needing that is not happening? Are you worried about the safety and preservation of your own community, and would perhaps like some reassurance on the matter?
If so, would you be willing to consider alternative stratgies for keeping your local community safe – ones that did not involve making hundreds of other people (including young children) homeless, and at massive expense to the taxpayer – if you had more reassurance that your concerns would be addressed?
Is spending millions of pounds to make a group of people homeless really a beneficial use of your local community’s money?
I’m just really unclear on what it is that you actually need, probably because I don’t really understand how seemingly wanting someone else to go away and stop existing can actually be a genuine “need”, when it sounds far more like a personal preference to me. What are you expecting that this course of action will achieve, should the Dale Farm families get evicted?
All over UK there’s a housing shortage n disaffected people. Council response let’s make more homeless n disaffected people. Stupid council. Where is freedom? Does Magna Carta artlce 61 apply here? Are statues above the law?
What about the freedom of the people around them? Subjected to 10 years of constant abuse from parasites.
i say leave the travellers alone, they are hard working people, earn their own money and in the past lived by the road …… how many of you could do that people allways pick on others who are different let them stay at Dale Farm
Hard working, don’t make me laugh. The y indulge in thieving? Disrupting law abiding people’s lives? Non-payment of taxes law abiding people pay? Hanging plastic bags of human dung in hedges? Intimidating people who would not dream of arriving mob handed to enforce their point of view?
They demand rights, but they don’t mind infringing other people’s legal rights to make their point.
They want to be known as travellers, but refuse to travel when the local community ask them to move on. They are nothing but self indulgent parasites living on the back of right minded people.
I see a lot of accusations here from someone who cares to remain anonymous, and zero proof.
Do you have actual proof that people at Dale Farm have been responsible for thieving or hanging plastic bags of excrement in hedges? If so, post it online – because I’m sure you have a veritable dossier of photos (and perhaps even videos) to confirm your accusations, right?
How do you actually know it’s them for starters? Please either put up your proof, or cease your anonymous smear campaign.
You say you’d like them to travel, but it has been the policy of various governments over the years to encourage travellers to buy land and settle (and they have pursued this policy by the stick as well as by the carrot). Where are they supposed to go?
There are very few places they can actually travel to and stay, since those places (such as common land) have been systematically eradicated, sold off or otherwise taken away over the years because it was profitable to do so, and because it pleased NIMBYs who simply don’t like to even SEE travellers, let alone have them living nearby.
Why not just come out and say what you really want “Joe Bloggs”, because from what I can tell, you appear to want these people – these families, including small children who have done nothing of any wrong to anybody – to stop existing altogether.
You might as well just call them something like “niggers” really, and drop any pretense otherwise.
Lest we forget the lessons of the past, genocide is never far away while views such as yours remain unchallenged. Make no mistake, racism and fascism are most definitely alive and well in Britain in 2011!!
May I also ask what you, personally, have done to build bridges of understanding between the local community and the travellers? Not a jot, I’d wager.
If you view people as scum who need to be eradicated, exactly how much is that likely to encourage them to want to integrate into YOUR local community? It’s a no-brainer, isn’t it? The door isn’t even open in the first place, so what hope to they stand of integrating when it is YOU who are not willing?
No, it is attitudes of exclusion and simple xenophobia that are the problem – not the travellers.
Until you take it upon yourself, personally, to create positive change on a daily basis, it is utterly ludicrous to expect anything but more of the same, and thus, you are absolutely complicit in this situatuation because you are actually choosing it!
Lose your xenophobic views, create some bridges, and see a whole universe of possibility unfold. Be the person who makes a difference and changes something.
Dave S, you are spot on. this “joe bloggs” has obviously never met a real traveller before
Bring back the good old days. A JCB with a front fork loader, dump the hovels on the road and then have the cops arest them for obstructing the highway. If they are ‘travellers’ why are they not travelling? Eh?
its not just about travelling. its the community and the culture. At least they are trying to preserve their culture. non-travellers have just layed down ,while their cultures were stripped from around them
What culture? Thieving? Disrupting law abiding people’s lives? Non-payment of taxes law abiding people pay? Hanging plastic bags of human dung in hedges? Intimidating people who would not dream of arriving mob handed to enforce their point of view?
They demand rights, but they don’t mind infringing other people’s legal rights to make their point.
They want to be known as travellers, but refuse to travel when the local community ask them to move on. They are nothing but self indulgent parasites living on the back of right minded people.
80% of travellers on sites pay council tax (yes TAX) with their rent, as most sites are council maintained. believe it or not, they actually have toilets, so bags of dung is only an issue if they are actually travelling(like you seem to want). also, if they are travelling all year, they need to stop, usually on your schoolfields or car parks. which would you prefer?
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“I am saying let all the Dale Farm residents alone.” I agree. The world is watching and hoping that justice is served. USA
Rauridh.
First you should get your facts straight.
All of Dale Farm is owned by the residents. They own their own land. Half of the around 100 homes built HAVE PLANNING APPROVAL. The argument is only over the other 50 or so, which were built without planning approval on the old scrapyard site, when Basildon Council hardened their stance to the site around the 2000/2001.
So you are proposing to spend £8,000,000 to clear away the homes of 50 families with NOWHERE ELSE TO LIVE EXCEPT ON THEIR OWN LAND. That is a cost to Basildon Council and the taxpayer of at least £160,000 for each homeless family you intend to create. I say “at least” because the police think that their costs will be £10,000,000, which means a £360,000 bill for each homeless family you intend. That does not include the financial losses to the Dale Farm residents being made homeless, nor the cost to Local Authorities in their having to house the evicted and dispossessed families with their many children, old people, ill relatives, and transportable property.
This debacle also assumes the eviction will succeed. There is growing support, both in Britain and internationally, that promises to help the Dale Farm residents win by defeating the eviction that will be carried out by Constant & Co, a notorious private firm of bailiffs who care little for the Gypsy and Traveller families they constantly evict around the country acting under instruction from legally liable Local Authorities.
I am saying let all the Dale Farm residents alone.
I am saying that the planning system is bringing itself into complete disrepute, under the leadership of Eric Pickles.
I am saying that the Dale Farm residents show how all people, when allowed to, can provide their own affordable housing, which if allowed to stand, like the inter-war plotlands of Basildon, would be improved upon and become part of the landscape.
I am not saying get rid of PLANNING. I am saying precisely that the 1947 denial of development rights should be abolished, so that people have the RIGHT TO BUILD. In the pre-1947 planning system planners and elected councillors had to reach agreement with freeholders. Post-1947 the planners and elected councillors had the power of the state to choose who they ignored, and who they worked with. Not all freeholders were treated the same, with the same RIGHT TO BUILD.
So you have reality upside down. If everyone could build like the Dale Farm residents you ask “Who would provide the affordable housing then?”
If people had the RIGHT TO BUILD, as Housing Minister and MP for Welwyn Garden City Grant Shapps toyed with in his pre-election bid, then people could easily provide their own affordable housing in great numbers. Planners and elected councillors would have to reach agreement with them on how these were to be built. No longer could planners and elected councillors simply say “No” to freeholders.
The post-1947 planning system in 2011 doesn’t make housing affordable. It simply maintains the thing you are worried about – INFLATED HOUSE PRICES enjoyed by some freeholders who have priveleged access to the hearts and minds of planners and elected councillors.
If you imagine this to be a free market argument, then that is your mistake. I am arguing that the development rights in freehold should be asserted over the power of the state to deny the RIGHT TO BUILD in freehold.
If you think about it, it is the popular interest in maintaining inflated house prices, dressed up in a concern for the green belt, that shows why the planners and elected councillors are moving to evict anyone who builds affordable housing on unauthorised land. You are defending the inflated housing market, and are willing to attack Gypsies and Travellers to do so.
I’m no Free Marketeer, but you are definaitely planning a Pogrom, alongside Eric Pickles. Needless to say Grant Shapps is now, post-election, very silent on the promise of the RIGHT TO BUILD. Pickles has stopped him.
Is the inflated price of the nation’s generally unaffordable housing an attack on Gypsies and Travellers? I know that there are many “settled” households who would like to build affordable housing on cheap farmland, just like the dale farm residents have done. It task is to get the “settled” sections of society to support the Gypsies and Travellers before people like you effectively unleash Contsnt & Co.
Well said! This point in particular needs banging home:
“If you think about it, it is the popular interest in maintaining inflated house prices, dressed up in a concern for the green belt, that shows why the planners and elected councillors are moving to evict anyone who builds affordable housing on unauthorised land.”
Want to know why there is a housing crisis? Why there are riots?
Because people are denied from being able to just bloody well support themselves!
We are all being shepherded into a system (industrial consumer capitalism) which fundamentally cannot support us – and which, to boot, is fundamentally not interested in supporting us unless the markets decide that it is profitable to do so.
Hate “the welfare state”? It is a designed-in part of the current system, to ensure that people don’t get desperate enough to go the self-sufficient route. It is designed to prevent “opt out” from this system of steering our “freedom” so that we create profit and provide slave labour for someone else to cream off. And yet it too is entirely dependent on the whims of bankers and businessmen. There is only so far benefits can be cut before something snaps!
We urgently need self-supporting, largely self-sufficient communities to address all of these social problems, and the ecological problems that go hand in hand with them.
But the planning system is not working for the people at the moment – it is working to line the pockets of those further up the pyramid scheme of the so-called “property market”, and all the other pyramid schemes that support it.
This is precisely why Dale Farm is a rallying call for all those who can imagine a different way of doing things, where people will have the right to build their own houses and live on their land – the way it always used to be, and will have to be again before these problems are likely to get solved.
Ruaridh, you say:
“We would all love to have a nice house in the Greenbelt…knowing it would be worth a small fortune! However, the law abiding citizens of this country know dam well you cannot just develop on a parcel of land without going through the proper channels!”
Isn’t it the case that:
The “proper channels”, the legalised planning system, has failed to produce sufficient housing for all the citizens of this country, insisting on the Green Belt as a way to contain the urban population, with the result that the housing market has inflated. The inflated British housing stock is worth a fortune – £4,000,000,000,000 – and the cost of housing has everywhere become expensive if not unaffordable on household incomes where the majority of law abiding citizens earn less than £30,000 a year. At the same time law abiding citizens can see that farmland costs less than £10,000 a hectare, and land with planning approval is anything upwards of £1,000,000 a hectare. A hectare can provide 20-30 family homes with good gardens, and the cost of construction is generally between £800 and £1,200 a m2. People can also see that the Green Belt is larger than the developed area of Britain, and is mostly of poor quality landscape. It would be greatly improved by being lived in and over time gardened.
However the proper channels, while having failed to house the population adequately after nationalising development rights in 1947, will demolish the homes of people who have taken the initiative to house themselves.
I’m an architect. I run http://www.audacity.org.
You say you work for a planning department. I wonder how successful you have been at providing affordable family housing in your Borough?
The only law that is being broken at Dale Farm is a planning law dating from 1947 when people we prevented from housing themselves on cheap farmland. The thing that scares this government (and you it seems) is that many citizens of this country will learn the example of Dale Farm and build affordable homes of their own, by breaking the planning law. I support everyone breaking the 1947 planning law.
The planning law is well out of date, and the Localism Bill can’t fix it.
Theres a difference between taking initiative and breaking the laws! Planning law is in place to protect the amenity of the area a development is proposed! The community around Dale Farm had no chance to right in and object to any proposed development here because they never applied for planning permission! As a result, the residential amenity of the locals has been significantly impacted upon to their detriment! Do you think this is fair?
If planning law was not in place who would protect the rights of neighbours to light, privacy and other amenity issues? We could not have the courts bogged down with constant compaints based on the “laws of nuisance.” As an architect surely you can understand the impacts a development proposes and the need for these impacts to be assessed before any development is allowed to be built. And as an architect surely you must understand the importance of aesthetics when it comes to buildings. Are you suggesting to me that previously undeveloped agricultural land has now been visually enhanced by the construction of vast areas of hardcore, caravans/mobile homes and post and rail fences/brick walling? Has the land been properly developed i.e. is there adequate provisions for surface run off and drainage and all the other issues that go with building a modern development?
Like I said I wouldn’t care if it was a gypsy encampment here or a housing development site that was being argued. My view point would stay the same, the proper channels need to be negotiated before any development requiring planning permission takes place. That said if it was a developer trying to build houses on this site, it would be far easier to have dealt with the matter at a cost far less to the tax payer that the current problem!
What right over and above anyone else do they have to “the land” and the feeling of being above the law? Sorry you built something without applying for planning permission and therefore, you must pay the price like everyone else! Its not like its a garden shed being put up without planning permission its a massive bloody caravan site!! How about everybody goes out and buys an acre of farmland in the Green Belt and then attempts to put 15 houses on there and see what the country end up like? Nah you’re ok there! Rules are rules…you cannot just ignore the ones that don’t work in your favour.
Rauridh
You are worried that:
“If planning law was not in place who would protect the rights of neighbours to light, privacy and other amenity issues?”
You should not worry. There is plenty of built evidence to show exactly what would happen if the 1947 denial of development rights were repealed, and planning law was limited to arguing for better development.
As a fan of planning you will know that before 1947, and after the first Planning Act of 1909, neighbouring freeholders were perfectly able to negotiate with each other through the case law that surrounded Freehold land ownership. All the lovely inter-war bungalows and semi-detached homes that people enjoy today were built without the need for a post-1947 national planning system that denied the right to build. Indeed, lovely places like Letchworth were started before any planning legislation, where the developers ran their own competitions to agree an aesthetic, and get neighbours to agree to their own terms.
You seem to have very little faith in the ability of the citizens of this country to be able to work together to agree local terms for development amongst fellow freeholders.
The history of Basildon is one of “plotlands”, where people built without the need for a planning system. These homes, and every inter-war bungalow or semi-detached have been improved over time, with their gardens established.
The constant harrasment of the Dale Farm residents who have taken the initiative to break an outdated planning law is preventing them from establishing their homes. If Basildon council were taking the initiative they would make a virtue out of both the Dale farm example, and their history of “plotlands”, to invite people to settle, live and work in the town. It needs a dynamic, and opening up land for affiordable house building would boost the town.
Regrettably they (like you) seem more worried about sustaining the highly inflated value of the existing stock of lovely bungalows and semi-detached, than in allowing everyone a universal right to build. I understand the anxiety. We have all become far too dependent on the inflated value of our homes, particularly as wages are so low in Britain.
The problem seems to be that the Dale Farm residents are an easy target for hatred, when actually they are pioneers, showing the rest of us how we could sensibly house ourselves as citizens… if only the guardians of the outdated and failed planning system would leave them alone.
If you are truly not motivated by an anti-gypsy or anti-traveller prejudice you will raise the tone of this discussion to one of the Right to Build. All citizens should have the right to build, so that if you don’t like what your neighbours are proposing you are free to go and talk with them. Good neighbours would take account of each other, as has happened in countless situations.
Hitting the Dale Farm residents with the planning law is just another way of not talking to them.
Have some confidence in your fellow citizens. Or admit you just don’t like your neighbours.
So are you proposing we get rid of the planning system and leave it to free market forces? Thats hardly gonna work is?? Who would provide the affordable housing then? Developers don’t want to provide it because it eats into their profits…if there was no planning department there to negotiate and set the numbers of affrodbale homes per development sight who would want to build them?
One thing that has been clear from my time in Local Government is that actually a hell of alot of neighbours don’t speak to each other they just build what they want and leave it up to the planning authority to notify their neighbours of their intention to build. Or alternatively they don’t apply for planning permission and have their neighbours shop them up to the local planning authority. In an ideal world yes people would talk with each other sort out any perceived problems that may arise from a development proposal. In reality that is not gonna happen. Person A enjoys sunbathing and gardening in his sunny south facing garden. Person B has an expanding family and wishes to build a great big extension to his property that would block the light to Person A property and have an overbearing impact. Under the current system the rights of the neighbour are taken into account and the development would most likely be refused. Under free market forces what do you propose?
Person C has brought a lovely property in the countryside costing him around £500,000. Under the current system he can expect a reasonsable level of enjoyment from his dwellinghouse knowing the local planning authority has a duty to safeguard residential amenity. Person D illegally develops a field next door to his property and suddenly the site is full of caravans and hardcore. Person A’s property falls in value to around £150,000 with no chance of being able to sell it becvause of the “new neighbours.” His amenity falls below a level considered acceptable with his property being vandalised etc and threats made agaisnt him personally. Under the current system the local planning authority acts upon this to safeguard the amenity of the exisitng residents. Under free market forces how do you propose to stop this kind of situation from happening?
This is reality, we don’t live in a utopian society. Times have changes since the early 1900s. Was it not feesable to leave your back door open in the 1900s without the threat of being burgled?
“Oh but we didn’t know it was green belt land at the time of settling!” Yeah right ignorance is bliss…..why did lots of familiesa suddenly move there, families that already had housing or pitches on sites? Hmmm I think they wanted to jump in on grabbing a piece of green belt land! Surely they cann all just go back to where they came from before they moved to Dale Farm?? In my local authority there is a site with 16 available pitches. 4/5 of the pitches are occupied by one family and the others are free. Why? Apparently the travellers are refusing to live on this site because they “don’t get on with the existing family.” So there is spaces around the country for them without having to build on or create new illegal sites!
Break the rules and well you run the risk of the consequences. Everyone else has to play by the rules….why can’t they?
Can the Council remove Gypsies/Travellers from their land immediately?
No, the Council must:
show that the Gypsies/Travellers are on the land without consent;
make enquiries regarding the general health, welfare and children’s education;
ensure that the Human Rights Acts 1998 has been fully complied with;
follow a set procedure in terms of proving ownership of land and details of the illegal encampment that will enable them to
successfully obtain the necessary authority from the Courts to order the Gypsies/Travellers to leave the site.
The Police will visit all sites reported to them. In certain circumstances (for example, where the Gypsies/Travellers have with them six or more vehicles), officers may use powers under Section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. These powers will only be used in situations of serious criminality or public disorder not capable of being addressed by normal criminal legislation and in which the trespassory occupation of the land is a relevant factor.
The Police are bound by the Human Rights Act and may be constrained to avoid using section 61 in circumstances where it would preclude welfare considerations from being applied by the civil courts.
The duty of the Police is to preserve the peace and prevent crime. Trespass on land by itself is not a criminal offence. Prevention of Trespass and the removal of trespassers are the responsibilities of the landowner and not the Police. The Police will investigate all criminal and Public Order offences.
Can the Court refuse to grant the Council an order to move Gypsies/Travellers on?
Yes. If there is an unavoidable reason for the Gypsies/Travellers to stay on the site, or if the Court believes that the Council have failed to make adequate enquiries regarding the general health and welfare of the Gypsies/Travellers. The Council must try to find out this information before going to Court.
Does the Council have a duty to move Gypsies/Travellers when they are camped without the landowner’s permission?
No. If Gypsies/Travellers are camped on Council land, the Council can evict them.
If they are on private land, it is usually the landowner’s responsibility. The Government has advised that when Gypsies/Travellers are not causing a problem, the site may be tolerated.
Basildon Council should be praising Oak Lane residents for building homes and a place to live. Many people throughout Britain can’t find affordable housing, and the development of Dale Farm shows how people can begin to solve that predicament for themselves. The Oak lane residents are a good example to everyone wanting a home.
Oak Lane should form the basis for a much larger settlement off the A127. Rather than bulldozers being sent to evict the residents and destroy family homes the construction industry should be sending building materials and labour to help extend the development and stop Basildon Council.
I hope http://www.audacity.org can help oppose the demolition and eviction.
I think it is totally disgusting what is and has happened to the local residents here! I would love to get more involved and offer help whereever I can!
I feel so much for the local residents who must have suffered so much over the years and had to tollerate the untollerable!
So please please inform me how do I get involved with the eviciton so that the people of Crays Hill can have their life back and the village they once cherished to live in before the such unfortunate circumstances fell upon them! It was only today I was reading an article about one mans house falling in value from £450,000 to little over £150,000 because of this problem!
I work for a local planning authority and I am willing to offer and advice or help to ensure the eviction process goes as quickly and smoothly as possible. Lets give Crays Hill back to the local residents so they can enjoy the lifestyle that all UK tax paying residents deserve!
i would like to point out that unlike the stereotypes most gypsy /travellers are tax payers and i do hope your comments are not inciting racial hatred or violence to the gypsy/traveller people??
Oh please……
You cannot sit here and argue that the Dale Farm Gypsy site has not caused a problem for the locals? How come the school was ranked the worst performing primary school in the UK last year with 100% failure in SATS for English and Maths?? Why has this mans house decreased in value so much? Why have the locals been subject to threats and abuse from the gypsy/traveller commmunity? Are these not problems you feel need to be addressed?
We would all love to have a nice house in the Greenbelt…knowing it would be worth a small fortune! However, the law abiding citizens of this country know dam well you cannot just develop on a parcel of land without going through the proper channels! It is called Green Belt for a reason….to restrict development around London to prevent urban sprawl and to provide a buffet zone between london and the countryside! Have you no consideration for this and the aesthetics of the British countryside?? A stark intrusion on the landscape could easily be words used to describe this site!
I have no problems with the gypsy way of life….if they wish to travel around then so be it! By I’m a little confused?? You see my idea of travelling is moving from place to place…not setting up camp in a field with a view to staying there permanently!! But, if that is the expressed desire of gypsies these days then why can’t they go through the correct and legal channels to obtain what they wish for! i.e. apply for planning permission on land that they own to form a development that is sympathetic to the rural surroundings and the nearby communities!
Ask yourself this….if you had a nice house or plot of land that you had lived on for years with hard earned money used to pay for it then all of a sudden it is surrounded by an illegal encampment of people….would you not be sligtly annoyed? Then add to it that they have not just illegally enclosed around your property they have also impacted upon the enjoyment of your dwellinghouse by virtue of noise, threats and vandalism. Would you not be further aggreaved by this? If the answer is yes, then I think you will easily understand the concerns from local residents!
Abide by the law….no one is above it!! I wouldn’t care if it was a gypsy or a millionaire that had created such a monstrosity of a site on Green belt land…I would still be expecting the authorities to do something about it!
Od dear my heart bleeds for the man, I expect once the travellers are gone the land will be reclassified as brown and houses built,as has happened on other sites, and your mans house will be worth a million.
Re ur gem about travellers travellig.put down ur sail mail/Murdoch rag and read ahistory book.I think you’ll cnd that the bloody half million Tory suburbs are built on land which originally belonged to travellers.until thatchs glory days generatins of trAvels moved around staying on land classed as theirs:the fat cat builders stole it to be build ur “affordable housing”;affordable to whom btw?get real’.the same Tory greed machine made it illegal for ANYONE to sleep in a tent/cvan apart from in designated fee charging sites(I’m 48 n as a kid we cd stick out touring cvan in any fiield free;u prob holidayed in France tho hmm)
Oh and as to ur comment bout the primary school-I live in the north east,come on up for a slice of reality pie.or check out inner London school ofsted reports
I’m going down to Dale farm to lend my support:bcos the eviction is immoral and illegal.also the thin end of the wedge mate;how would you like to be evicted if ur face didn’t fit/ur neighbours thought u a tad common…hmm?
Hello, i would like to become involved in whatever way I can. i would also request that you attend the planning meeting at Solihull Council regarding the Burtons’ private site at Meriden as this family is the victim of constant racial hatred from Meriden RAID.
Martin
Please tell http://www.audacity.org about the Burtons private site in Solihul.
You might like to read:
Pickles Plans a Pogrom on http://www.audacity.org/IA-13-04-11.htm
If you can send us information we’ll investigate and support anyone trying to house themselves against the weight of the 1947 planning law.
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