Dale Farm Fighting Back after Failed Eviction Bid

Update from Zelda Jeffers [zeidyj@hotmail.com]

Zelda Jeffers arrested,
Hovefields eviction 2010

Legal observers including me, Zelda Jeffers, continue to visit Dale Farm to monitor the way Basildon Council and the bailiffs they employ are behaving since the violent eviction reported earlier. Some people, often only one at a time, are staying on site in harsh conditions. They help the rest of us who visit get in. Entering is not easy, security guards hassle people and you have to have a high visibility jacket and hard hat as well as give your name to enter land that belongs to the Travellers who have welcomed our presence and support. 

Two chalets which had bats in them have been removed although the bats are protected. There will be legal challenges but it seems difficult to get any action as things proceed. 

We are noting down the diggers and dumpers moving earth, rubble and rubbish from plots to make what is called bunding, that is levees of earth, around plots. The court has put limits on what the bailiffs can do they have to leave fences and walls, there is no mention of this bunding. It is aimed at keeping the Travellers off the land, but three families can still legally live on their plots. They have been moved off while the land is dug up and it is unclear how they will get back. 

Septic tanks have been broken and sewage leaked into the pools that have grown inside the bunding. The electricity is off and the generators which have been provided often stop working. The site, once a vibrant and welcoming community is now desolate, unhealthy and ugly. A dirty rotten result of a dirty rotten system.The residents and those who have left and are searching for somewhere to live would welcome your prayers.

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Dale Farm Fighting Back after Failed Eviction Bid

Nov. 8, 2011 Dale Farm toilet and wash place

By Grattan Puxon

After a hugely expensive but futile bid to drive them out of Dale Farm, Tory-leader Tony Ball turned around last week and advised homeless Travellers to seek residence permits through proper channels.

Rising to this challenge, residents will put their case to a public inquiry on Tuesday (22 Nov) for the establishment of an alternate mobile-home park at nearby Laindon. They are also want brown-field land at Gardiners Lane for a second siteoth locations belong to the Homes & Communities Agency, a Government quango which earlier offered them to Basildon for this purpose. Tony Ball turned down the offer.

While formal planning consent is sought for only a dozen permanent plots at Laindon, Travellers are requesting the go-ahead to set up 60 temporary pitches to meet immediate emergency needs as winter weather sets in.

Nov. 8, 2011, Dale farm, bunding plot 27 and beyond

No surprise that Ball rejected the Laindon development. However, the grounds for refusal, like much else, were bungled by the council. Basildon got the land area wrong and claimed the plan is subject to regulations which do not in fact apply to this site of under one hectare. As a result the appeal could be a walkover.

More than 50 properties have been destroyed on the Dale Farm estate. But the number of caravans is now higher than before the eviction. Residents are living alongside mud-filled craters, with no electricity supply. Many have taken refuge on legal plots. Newly arrived caravans are packed on the estate roads as families come home for Christmas.

Closed entrance gates, Dale farm, Oct. 29, 2011

The cost to tax-payers of Basildon’s botched policy of ethnic-cleansing is rising weekly. Initially, the bill for the police-led assault on the estate was put at £18m. Now a woebegone Tony Ball is besieged not only by fresh legal action and claims for compensation, but a demand for an apology from a British MEP.

Members of parliament from all parties are backing Essex MEP Richard Howitt’s demand that Ball say sorry for the physical force used to eject him when he attempted to speak to media about his opposition to the eviction.

In the words of Martin Schultz, German leader of the l85-member socialist group, this was a deliberate and sinister interference with freedom of speech. The European Parliament is protesting to the UK Government about it, adding to earlier Dale Farm-related interventions by the UN and Amnesty International.

Sheridan protest in front bulldozer, Dale Farm, 2006

With a test-case due in the High Court mid-December, it could be that Basildon will find itself ordered to build pitches for the Dale Farm homeless. All who qualified turned down council houses and are pressing instead for the 62 pitches the council was supposed to provide by 2011 under regional planning.

Illegal over-enforcement, a common practice when evicting Gypsies, is another major accusation faced by Tony Ball’s administration. A High Court judge is likely shortly to be asked to review evidence that the council has breached an agreement limiting the scope of the clearance.

Scores of compensation claims are currently in preparation, ranging from a broken washing machine to serious personal injury. Some legal properties allegedly incurred massive damage. Finally, a complaint over the way riot police stormed the barricaded estate using 50,000 volt barb-firing taser guns is likely to keep Dale Farm in the headlines for months to come.