Background of what's happened at Dale Farm
Dale Farm became a refuge in the last decade or so for families evicted from other sites. The enlargement of Dale Farm came about through the closure and subdivision of the scrap yard. New 95ftx45ft plots were marked out and sold to Sheridans, McCarthies and related families desperate to get away from harassment by notorious baliff company Constant and Co, who have displayed a seemingly personal vendetta against the Irish traveller community over recent years (although at the fringes of that community, a criminal element it must be acknowledged does it's best at times to wind up and antagonise the settled community from whom the baliffs originate where the two have interacted).
Basildon District Council fought a long running battle to evict 51 pitchs on the Dale Farm site who were without planning permission (the other 34 pitchs on the adjacent Oak Lane site already gained planning permission retrospectively some years ago). All planning applications for plots on Dale Farm were refused and three public inquiries were held. The travellers' appeals to government eventually resulted in a temporary stay for two years. In May 2005, however, Basildon Council voted to spend up to £4 million on 'direct action eviction' under Section 127 of the Town and Country Planning Act, (including also traveller families living at Hovefields Avenue, Wickford) on the basis that 80 families on 51 pitches had developed their homes without authority and were residing in a restricted greenbelt zone. The site was in actual fact brownfield - a large disused scrap yard - within a so-called greenbelt designated area (designated as such even though the site is only 200 yards from a dual carriageway and large retail park). Essex County Council are alleged to have even drawn up a plan to take more than 100 children at Dale Farm into temporary care as a means of pressuring their families to leave Basildon, or Essex altogether.
Enforcement Notices served upon the community were successfully contested in the High Court when in a judicial review ruling, Mr Justice Collins made it clear no eviction should take place unless acceptable alternative accommodation was provided. In his ruling on the 9th May 2008, Justice Collins was particularly critical of the violent methods used by Constant & Co, the firm of bailiffs that had carried out previous evictions and urged Basildon District Council (BDC) not to hire the firm again. Justice Collins writes that he watched video footage of one eviction and found the bailiffs' conduct "unacceptable." Even the presence of police had "failed to curb the excesses", he wrote.
However, on Thursday 22nd January 2009, BDC sucessfully won their appeal against this ruling, claiming that it is unable to accommodate the several hundred persons who would be rendered homeless, who include some 150 children and young people. An application to the House of Lords to appeal the decision made by the Court of Appeal was rejected.
In the meantime, Basildon District Council were still refusing to provide alternative sites for the 80 families (approximately 500 people) on the now 54 pitchs who argued for this on the grounds that they have the right to have their customary rights to settle protected on the basis that there is inadequate provision of traveller sites in the district (as is the case across the UK). Basildon District Council (BDC) refused to reach a deal on the basis that the land on that half of the Dale Farm site without planning permission was worth only £120,000. And yet, BDC voted to spend a third of its budget - £8 million demolishing the estate and turning people out onto the road. The policing had an additional price tag of £10 million, of which £6 million was reported to have been provided by the Home Office.
It was also reported that BDC walked away from a working group looking into a solution to the standoff in which the Homes & Communities Agency offered money for a new site for the families. Read here. The HCA had previously revealed it owned ‘extensive’ land within the Basildon district.
Since the middle of August 2011, campaigners in solidarity with Dale Farm and the residents called on people to come down to Camp Constant – the solidarity camp defending the site (named after the name of the notorious baliff company who have been contracted to do the eviction by Basildon Council).
UN experts had urged the UK authorities to halt the evictions process and to pursue negotiations with the residents until an acceptable agreement for relocation is reached.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=39241&Cr=housing&Cr1
Richard Sheridan as president of the Gypsy Council had been involved in eleventh-hour negotiations with the UN Commission on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva; the Special Raporteur has already entreated the UK Government to cease the evictions and to ensure the families at Dale Farm are offered viable culturally appropriate alternative sites. Amnesty International has sent a call out to all their many thousands of supporters, condemning a forced eviction which would leave families homeless, when no alternative culturally appropriate site has been made available. This followed a letter from the UN Special Rapporteur to the UK government, expressing concern that the planned forced evictions would be a clear breach of human rights legislation, if families were not offered an alternative site before forced evictions took place.
The Dale Farm case was registered with the United Nations Advisory Group on Forced Evictions, which sent a special team to monitor the eviction, calling the pending eviction "a violation of international law." Report here. The Bishop of Chelmsford Stephen Cottrell and Catholic Bishop of Brentwood Thomas McMahon along with famous actress Vanessa Redgrave recently visited the illegal travellers site in Essex, and met some of the 80 families who are under immediate threat of eviction.
Final notice to quit their land at Dale Farm, Basildon, Essex, expired at midnight on Wednesday 31st August after Dale Farm lost what they thought was their final chance at getting an emergency injunction to delay the planned eviction. This meant that, since the 1st Sept, the bailiffs were in a position to come at any time (Basildon Council always publicly stated that they will give proper notice of eviction, which they honoured).
Then it was announced that the eviction was set to start on Monday the 19th September. A last-minute injunction restrained Basildon District Council from clearing the site pending a further High Court on Friday 23rd. Appeal against the legality of the eviction operation was refused on 3rd October, when Justice Edwards-Stuart ruled that Basildon District Council could remove caravans from 49 of 54 plots on the Dale Farm site. However, the injunction was subsequently extended a further 3 weeks as the judge then had to additionally consider the case of whether to grant one of 3 separate Judicial Reviews submitted week ending Fri 23rd. This Judicial Review application was questioning Basildon District Council's refusal to provide an alternative site in the district of Basildon (the Homes & Communities Agency has said it owns ‘extensive’ land within the Basildon district and previously offered money to Basildon District Council for a new site for families at Dale Farm in breach of planning permission - read below). It has also been revealed that whilst Basildon District Council's eviction of Dale Farm under the 2004 Town & Country Planning Act was being conducted on the basis that the site is in controvention of green belt policy, it was exposed that Basildon’s planning committee was at the same time recommending approval of planning permission for housing developers on agricultural land in Runwell Parish Council. Read more here.
Ongoing legal battles, physical confrontation, blockading and any other tactics available came together to make the eviction as financially crippling a mission for Basildon Council as possible. Despite this, the resolve of Basildon Council backed by the opinion of local people was undiminished, and held it's nerve. On Thursday the 13th October the Dale Farm traveller site lost it's High Court hearing for the right to judicial review on Basildon's District Council's handling of the eviction process and the council's provision of an alternative site to accommodate travellers on the grounds that stopping the eviction - in the words of Justice Duncan Ouseley - would "risk bringing criminal law and the planning system into serious disrepute". In his ruling, Mr Justice Ouseley at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, also said that the Travellers delayed too long in challenging Basildon's decision to take direct action against them, and said the council's actions were not disproportionate. However, this judgement appeared not to identify any responsibility on central government for the source of the underlying problem - the lack of authorised sites nationwide.
Read also: Dale Farm battle highlights funding black hole for new Traveller sites
Equality and Human Rights Commission says because Gypsy sites grant is not ring-fenced, money has been channelled away (The Guardian, 28/09/2011).