Dale Farm
Encyclopedia
Dale Farm is a plot of land on Oak Lane in Crays Hill
, Essex
, United Kingdom.
Until October 2011, it was an Irish Traveller
halting site
which had been established without planning permission. The site is owned by members of the travelling community and is located within the Green Belt.
In October 2011, to give bailiffs safe access to allow a clearance order to be executed, some residents and activists had to be removed from the Dale Farm site - this action gained international press coverage.
At its height, Dale Farm, along with the adjacent Oak Lane site, housed over 1,000 people, the largest Traveller concentration in the UK.
Dale Farm cottage was leased to Ray Bocking, a scrap metal dealer in the early 1960's. Land in the north-east corner was used as a scrap yard without planning permission until 2001.
As a site for travellers, Dale Farm was started in the 1980s when a planning appeal was won by two families against Basildon District Council on the southern end of the site, with the help of a Planning Law expert, Robert Home. Prof. Home stated that "I was first involved when two Gypsy families wanted planning permission for single family plots down Oak Road and we fought it against Basildon Council and we were successful." He also claimed that although it was in the greenbelt, even 30 years ago the area was described as mixed use. Also, "There were houses down this part of Crays Hill that were actually in the greenbelt, small rural businesses here, then the Gypsy caravans came in. But there had always been Gypsy caravans in and around Basildon." Subsequently, the council ceded permission to 40 families before deciding against granting further permissions as other parts of the site were occupied.
Mr Bocking said that the site "was originally concreted over by Basildon council". Basildon council deny this, although a contractor who worked for the previous owner said, "Basildon council regularly brought waste tarmac and rubble from roadworks and dumped it on Dale Farm for a period of 10 years until the 1990s." Basildon council says "it served enforcement notices against [him] in 1992 and 1994 and council contractors did not put down any hardstanding on the farm."
Traveller John Sheridan purchased Dale Farm cottage and the green fields around it from Mr Bocking for £120,000 in 2001. At this time unplanned development started. There is a report that plots were changing hands for £50,000.
Various planning breaches were reported. Basildon Council first served enforcement notices in 2001 and the Travellers brought legal action in an attempt to have these repealed. The council has said that planning applications for the caravans and chalets on the site were rejected because the land was green belt.
The Guardian
newspaper reported that a "temporary order was granted by the then Secretary of State, John Prescott
".
In reference to this temporary order, the government's Communities and Local Government department, in their report on "Site Provision and Enforcement for Gypsies and Travellers", dated December 2007, wrote:
Basildon Council's Development Control Committee minutes state that: "In June 2005, once the two-year compliance period had lapsed, the Council resolved that direct action was necessary to secure compliance with the notices. It was this decision (reconsidered in December 2007) that was then made the subject of Judicial Review proceedings, which were heard in February 2008."
In 2008, Essex County Council's Racial Equality Council funded a £12,000 community centre at the site, built without planning permission.
Ownership of the unauthorised (illegal) portion appears to rest with the Sheridan clan
of travellers. Richard Sheridan is the President of the Dale Farm Housing Association.
A reporter for the Echo, wrote that some are linked to driveway surfacing in continental Europe, and door to door sales of electrical goods in Australia
and Iceland
, some of a "dangerous or counterfeit" nature.
The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that "new evidence has emerged" that some residents have cultural roots in the town of Rathkeale
, County Limerick
, Ireland, and some own property there. The newspaper said of the residents: "They deny any connections, yet some of them appear on deeds of homes, others on planning applications for houses and yet more on the electoral register." It also notes that Matthew Brindley, of the Irish Traveller Movement in Britain, said:
The travellers have links to the local area, with many of their children attending a local Crays Hill school.
Early in the morning of 19 May 2005, a fire swept through a chalet killing both John and Cathleen McCarthy and destroying three adjacent caravans.
The Council has questioned why pitches in the legal part of the site are usually unoccupied. However, "Grattan Puxon, a campaigner for travellers, said the owners would spend much of the year travelling. ... and some of the plots also had to be vacated before the electricity company carried out work at some of the plots"
A professor of land management, Robert Home stated in a telephone interview that
Prior to the clearance of the illegally occupied portion of the site, the entirety of Dale Farm contained about 100 families.
, concluded with the ruling that Basildon Council has acted lawfully in refusing planning permission for the disputed portion of Dale Farm.
On 15 March 2011, Basildon council voted 28 to 10 to clear 86 families from Dale Farm. Over the following period, the council prepared budgetary statements for the costs of eviction, with a worst case scenario estimated at £8million. During a series of secret talks over the following six months between travellers leader Richard Sheridan, council leader Tony Ball and head of planning Dawn French, the travellers demanded £6 million to relocate to authorised and potential new sites outside Basildon.
On 4 July, eviction notices were served on some 90 families living on the illegal half of the Dale Farm site, giving them until 31 August 2011 to leave.
The eviction date was set for the week beginning 19 September 2011 and electricity supplies to the site were planned to be cut off on the morning of the eviction.
Basildon council said that "It is important to remember that the operation is a site clearance and not an eviction."
On 26 August a temporary 50 mph. speed limit was applied to a two-mile stretch of the A127 carriageway by Essex County Council, anticipating an influx of slow-moving caravans and trucks joining the road when the eviction commenced. Several local road blocks were then introduced in areas surrounding Dale Farm.
Camp Constant was established on 27 August - a campsite within Dale Farm to help resist an eviction and monitor human rights. The camp was organised by the anarchist Dale Farm Solidarity group with the support of the Travellers. A mixture of concerned locals and activists began to arrive from Britain and various countries in Europe. The British firm of bailiffs, Constant and Co, was given the £2.2 million contract to clear 54 pitches at Dale Farm.
On 15 September the Council asked that the residents peacefully vacate the unauthorised site, and stressed that it will meet its duty to house homeless families as the law demands.
It was reported on 19 September that a mediation offer by Jan Jařab, the regional representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
, was rejected by the Foreign Office.
That morning, a bailiff addressed the residents, expressing health and safety concerns regarding the barricades and the possibly forceful eviction. Following court evidence given by Mary Sheridan and others, Hon. Justice Antony Edwards-Stuart at the High Court
in London issued an injunction, stating that the proposed measures ‘may go further’ than the terms of the enforcement notices. He said the council must notify the families individually about the precise nature of enforcement actions planned against them, and must give them a chance to respond. Enforcement could not occur before 23 September, and water and electricity must not be cut off.
Basildon council said on 20 September:
According to "The Sun" newspaper, around 20 caravans had voluntarily departed for Stockwood Park
in Luton
already.
On 3 October, Justice Edwards-Stuart ruled that Basildon Council could remove caravans from 49 of 54 plots. The council was also told it could remove the majority of concrete pitches on the site, but walls and fences would remain. Travellers had lodged applications for three separate judicial reviews which delayed action. On 13 October, Justice Duncan Ouseley
ruled against these appeals, saying residents were constantly violating criminal law and must be removed to prevent "the criminal law and the planning system being brought into serious disrepute".
Lord Justice Jeremy Sullivan
, ruling on a referral to the Court of Appeal on 17 October, advised representatives of the Dale Farm residents that they could not challenge the decision by Justice Ouseley. Following the hearing, Tony Ball announced that, with the exception of three plots where 48-hours notice would be provided, that Council would not be giving any further notice of when the eviction would start. He encouraged the residents and activists to leave peacefully. On behalf of the residents, Mrs. Kathleen McCarthy said that the decision meant that the travellers would be forced back onto the road.
A spokeswoman for the Dale Farm Solidarity group advised that the site had gone into "lockdown" and the perimeter had been reinforced around the 49 plots, in order to resist eviction of the families affected. The large metal gates at the front of the site were locked and every other entry point was heavily fortified with metal fencing, barbed wire and other items.
At 7 am on 19 October 2011 the site clearance of Dale Farm began. Local MP John Baron
said: "Police are using the minimum force required and when you are being pelted with bricks and rocks you are entitled to defend yourself." The MEP for the area, Richard Howitt
, said: "The smoke above Dale Farm is the most visible sign of the failure of Basildon Council to seek a mediated solution." Electricity was disconnected. More than 100 riot police entered the site through the rear fence, and two people were taser
ed. Bailiffs followed after 12 am. to begin removing illegally erected buildings. Some of the residents had to be forcibly removed, whilst others left voluntarily. Police spent most of that afternoon removing people from the 12-metre high scaffold tower on the front gate, with the help of cherry picker
s.
Essex Police
said that there were 34 arrests at the site for offences including violent disorder, breach of the peace and obstruction on 19 and 20 October. A police spokesman said all of the people arrested were activists, not Travellers.
Around 4:45 pm. on 20 October, Dale Farm travellers and supporters walked out of the site. Removal of mobile homes on the site by the bailiffs began and media access to the site was restricted for several days.
The Council said that returning the site to green belt land would take several weeks. The authorities were required to restore any walls and fences damaged during clearance. Farmers in the area blockaded their entrances to prevent illegal occupation of their land.
Before the injunction of 19 September, the Council had said that "The estimated direct operational cost of £6.5m together with estimated post operational costs of £1.5m produce a total of £8m. The eviction was expected to cost in total up to £18 million, including legal costs, and to involve the removal of around 400 residents, including about 100 children. Legal aid to residents from 2005 to September 2011 totaled £188,000.
On 5 November, following threats by Travellers to return to the site, Basildon Council was awarded an order at the High Court to prevent the former residents illegally reoccuping the site. The injunction would place those breaching it in contempt of court.
On 7 November 2011, an application by Dale Farm neighbour Len Gridley to the High Court to force the Basildon Council to remove debris from the illegal site was denied. Gridley said the delay in clearing the site has decreased the value of his property, and has criticized the council's decision to allow the size of the legal site to be increased without planning permission.
has advocated on behalf of the Travellers at Dale Farm. The party called a meeting at Parliament in June 2006, following which actor and activist Corin Redgrave
collapsed at a council meeting at Basildon Town Hall.
In their Annual Report and Accounts for 2006/7. the former Commission for Racial Equality
(CRE) said:
And later, as the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD):
The media varied in their reporting. According to the Daily Mail
newspaper website for 19 September 2011:
BBC
correspondent Fergal Keane
, who was inside the illegal part of the site, said:
series My Life, and in the Channel 4
series, Big Fat Gypsy Weddings.
In July 2011, the expected eviction of the Travellers was the subject of the BBC television documentary entitled The Big Gypsy Eviction. On 19 September 2011, Channel 4's documentary Dispatches: The Fight For Dale Farm covered the relationship between travellers, residents affected by encampments, and the law.
Crays Hill
Crays Hill is a village in the Basildon borough of Essex, England. The local school is Crays Hill Primary School. The River Crouch passes under Church Lane....
, Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
, United Kingdom.
Until October 2011, it was an Irish Traveller
Irish Traveller
Irish Travellers are a traditionally nomadic people of ethnic Irish origin, who maintain a separate language and set of traditions. They live predominantly in the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States.-Etymology:...
halting site
Halting site
A halting site is a facility constructed for the accommodation of Irish Travellers and other nomadic groups. They are common in Ireland, mainly on the periphery of towns, where they are maintained by local authorities, and include spaces to park caravans and vehicles, electricity and sanitary...
which had been established without planning permission. The site is owned by members of the travelling community and is located within the Green Belt.
In October 2011, to give bailiffs safe access to allow a clearance order to be executed, some residents and activists had to be removed from the Dale Farm site - this action gained international press coverage.
At its height, Dale Farm, along with the adjacent Oak Lane site, housed over 1,000 people, the largest Traveller concentration in the UK.
Dale Farm
Dale Farm is a six acre plot of land on Oak Lane, near the A127 Southend Arterial road. Dale Farm has been subject to Green Belt controls since 1982. Next to the Dale Farm site there is an authorised travellers' site known as Oak Lane. This has Council planning permission, and provides 34 legal pitches.Dale Farm cottage was leased to Ray Bocking, a scrap metal dealer in the early 1960's. Land in the north-east corner was used as a scrap yard without planning permission until 2001.
As a site for travellers, Dale Farm was started in the 1980s when a planning appeal was won by two families against Basildon District Council on the southern end of the site, with the help of a Planning Law expert, Robert Home. Prof. Home stated that "I was first involved when two Gypsy families wanted planning permission for single family plots down Oak Road and we fought it against Basildon Council and we were successful." He also claimed that although it was in the greenbelt, even 30 years ago the area was described as mixed use. Also, "There were houses down this part of Crays Hill that were actually in the greenbelt, small rural businesses here, then the Gypsy caravans came in. But there had always been Gypsy caravans in and around Basildon." Subsequently, the council ceded permission to 40 families before deciding against granting further permissions as other parts of the site were occupied.
Mr Bocking said that the site "was originally concreted over by Basildon council". Basildon council deny this, although a contractor who worked for the previous owner said, "Basildon council regularly brought waste tarmac and rubble from roadworks and dumped it on Dale Farm for a period of 10 years until the 1990s." Basildon council says "it served enforcement notices against [him] in 1992 and 1994 and council contractors did not put down any hardstanding on the farm."
Traveller John Sheridan purchased Dale Farm cottage and the green fields around it from Mr Bocking for £120,000 in 2001. At this time unplanned development started. There is a report that plots were changing hands for £50,000.
Various planning breaches were reported. Basildon Council first served enforcement notices in 2001 and the Travellers brought legal action in an attempt to have these repealed. The council has said that planning applications for the caravans and chalets on the site were rejected because the land was green belt.
The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
newspaper reported that a "temporary order was granted by the then Secretary of State, John Prescott
John Prescott
John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott is a British politician who was Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. Born in Prestatyn, Wales, he represented Hull East as the Labour Member of Parliament from 1970 to 2010...
".
In reference to this temporary order, the government's Communities and Local Government department, in their report on "Site Provision and Enforcement for Gypsies and Travellers", dated December 2007, wrote:
The site has a long and contentious planning history. Temporary permission was granted by the Secretary of State in 2005(?) with the intention that this would give the site residents and the local authority time to find a suitable alternative site. However, no such progress has been made, and the local authority has now received a homelessness application for the 400 people who claim that eviction from the site will leave them homeless. At the same time, opposition amongst parts of the settled community towards site residents has become ever fiercer, with parents from the settled community withdrawing their children from the school attended by children from Dale Farm, and the view regularly expressed in letters to the local press that Gypsies and Travellers living on the site are somehow ‘above the law’.
Basildon Council's Development Control Committee minutes state that: "In June 2005, once the two-year compliance period had lapsed, the Council resolved that direct action was necessary to secure compliance with the notices. It was this decision (reconsidered in December 2007) that was then made the subject of Judicial Review proceedings, which were heard in February 2008."
In 2008, Essex County Council's Racial Equality Council funded a £12,000 community centre at the site, built without planning permission.
The Dale Farm travellers
An article in the local newspaper, the Echo, states that the site was first stopped at by English travelling families during the 1970s. Residents claim the influx of Irish travellers which followed in 2001-2002 caused a rise in conflict with the settled community. Most of the English travellers subsequently "sold up as they are said not to mix" with the Irish travellers. In 2002 a land dispute led to the shooting dead of Billy Williams.Ownership of the unauthorised (illegal) portion appears to rest with the Sheridan clan
Clan
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...
of travellers. Richard Sheridan is the President of the Dale Farm Housing Association.
A reporter for the Echo, wrote that some are linked to driveway surfacing in continental Europe, and door to door sales of electrical goods in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
, some of a "dangerous or counterfeit" nature.
The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that "new evidence has emerged" that some residents have cultural roots in the town of Rathkeale
Rathkeale
Rathkeale is a town in west County Limerick, Ireland. It is located 30 km southwest of Limerick city on the N21 road to Tralee, and lies on the River Deel. Rathkeale has a significant Irish Traveller population....
, County Limerick
County Limerick
It is thought that humans had established themselves in the Lough Gur area of the county as early as 3000 BC, while megalithic remains found at Duntryleague date back further to 3500 BC...
, Ireland, and some own property there. The newspaper said of the residents: "They deny any connections, yet some of them appear on deeds of homes, others on planning applications for houses and yet more on the electoral register." It also notes that Matthew Brindley, of the Irish Traveller Movement in Britain, said:
"Some people might have property elsewhere but the vast majority do not." Jake Fulton, of Save Dale Farm, said: "If this is true I would be very surprised."
The travellers have links to the local area, with many of their children attending a local Crays Hill school.
Early in the morning of 19 May 2005, a fire swept through a chalet killing both John and Cathleen McCarthy and destroying three adjacent caravans.
The Council has questioned why pitches in the legal part of the site are usually unoccupied. However, "Grattan Puxon, a campaigner for travellers, said the owners would spend much of the year travelling. ... and some of the plots also had to be vacated before the electricity company carried out work at some of the plots"
A professor of land management, Robert Home stated in a telephone interview that
"the travellers would normally be on the road between April and October and use a more permanent site over the winter months. But many had remained at Dale Farm for a longer period to counter the threat of eviction."
Prior to the clearance of the illegally occupied portion of the site, the entirety of Dale Farm contained about 100 families.
2011 eviction
In October 2011, a legal process that had taken ten years, reaching as far as the Court of AppealCourt of Appeal of England and Wales
The Court of Appeal of England and Wales is the second most senior court in the English legal system, with only the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom above it...
, concluded with the ruling that Basildon Council has acted lawfully in refusing planning permission for the disputed portion of Dale Farm.
On 15 March 2011, Basildon council voted 28 to 10 to clear 86 families from Dale Farm. Over the following period, the council prepared budgetary statements for the costs of eviction, with a worst case scenario estimated at £8million. During a series of secret talks over the following six months between travellers leader Richard Sheridan, council leader Tony Ball and head of planning Dawn French, the travellers demanded £6 million to relocate to authorised and potential new sites outside Basildon.
On 4 July, eviction notices were served on some 90 families living on the illegal half of the Dale Farm site, giving them until 31 August 2011 to leave.
The eviction date was set for the week beginning 19 September 2011 and electricity supplies to the site were planned to be cut off on the morning of the eviction.
Basildon council said that "It is important to remember that the operation is a site clearance and not an eviction."
On 26 August a temporary 50 mph. speed limit was applied to a two-mile stretch of the A127 carriageway by Essex County Council, anticipating an influx of slow-moving caravans and trucks joining the road when the eviction commenced. Several local road blocks were then introduced in areas surrounding Dale Farm.
Camp Constant was established on 27 August - a campsite within Dale Farm to help resist an eviction and monitor human rights. The camp was organised by the anarchist Dale Farm Solidarity group with the support of the Travellers. A mixture of concerned locals and activists began to arrive from Britain and various countries in Europe. The British firm of bailiffs, Constant and Co, was given the £2.2 million contract to clear 54 pitches at Dale Farm.
On 15 September the Council asked that the residents peacefully vacate the unauthorised site, and stressed that it will meet its duty to house homeless families as the law demands.
It was reported on 19 September that a mediation offer by Jan Jařab, the regional representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is a United Nations agency that works to promote and protect the human rights that are guaranteed under international law and stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948...
, was rejected by the Foreign Office.
That morning, a bailiff addressed the residents, expressing health and safety concerns regarding the barricades and the possibly forceful eviction. Following court evidence given by Mary Sheridan and others, Hon. Justice Antony Edwards-Stuart at the High Court
High Court of Justice
The High Court of Justice is, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, one of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...
in London issued an injunction, stating that the proposed measures ‘may go further’ than the terms of the enforcement notices. He said the council must notify the families individually about the precise nature of enforcement actions planned against them, and must give them a chance to respond. Enforcement could not occur before 23 September, and water and electricity must not be cut off.
Basildon council said on 20 September:
The High Court yesterday granted an injunction preventing the Council from undertaking any physical measures to secure compliance with the outstanding planning enforcement notices and also to prevent the electricity and all other utilities from being cut. (There was never any intention for the Council to cut the water supply).
According to "The Sun" newspaper, around 20 caravans had voluntarily departed for Stockwood Park
Stockwood Park
Stockwood Park is a large urban park in Luton, Bedfordshire, in the Farley Hill estate. With period formal gardens, leading crafts museums and extensive golfing facilities, it is about 100 hectares in area...
in Luton
Luton
Luton is a large town and unitary authority of Bedfordshire, England, 30 miles north of London. Luton and its near neighbours, Dunstable and Houghton Regis, form the Luton/Dunstable Urban Area with a population of about 250,000....
already.
On 3 October, Justice Edwards-Stuart ruled that Basildon Council could remove caravans from 49 of 54 plots. The council was also told it could remove the majority of concrete pitches on the site, but walls and fences would remain. Travellers had lodged applications for three separate judicial reviews which delayed action. On 13 October, Justice Duncan Ouseley
Duncan Ouseley
Sir Duncan Brian Walter Ouseley, styled The Hon. Mr Justice Ouseley, is a High Court judge in England and Wales, Queen's Bench Division. He is notable for involvement in many legal cases reported in the British press....
ruled against these appeals, saying residents were constantly violating criminal law and must be removed to prevent "the criminal law and the planning system being brought into serious disrepute".
Lord Justice Jeremy Sullivan
Jeremy Sullivan
Sir Jeremy Mirth Sullivan PC has been a Lord Justice of Appeal since 2009.He was educated at Framlingham College and King's College London and was called to the Bar at Inner Temple in 1968 where he became a bencher in 1993.By 1976 Sullivan was Counsel for the Department of Environment's M25...
, ruling on a referral to the Court of Appeal on 17 October, advised representatives of the Dale Farm residents that they could not challenge the decision by Justice Ouseley. Following the hearing, Tony Ball announced that, with the exception of three plots where 48-hours notice would be provided, that Council would not be giving any further notice of when the eviction would start. He encouraged the residents and activists to leave peacefully. On behalf of the residents, Mrs. Kathleen McCarthy said that the decision meant that the travellers would be forced back onto the road.
A spokeswoman for the Dale Farm Solidarity group advised that the site had gone into "lockdown" and the perimeter had been reinforced around the 49 plots, in order to resist eviction of the families affected. The large metal gates at the front of the site were locked and every other entry point was heavily fortified with metal fencing, barbed wire and other items.
At 7 am on 19 October 2011 the site clearance of Dale Farm began. Local MP John Baron
John Baron
John Charles Baron is a British Conservative politician and the Member of Parliament for Basildon and Billericay.-Early life:...
said: "Police are using the minimum force required and when you are being pelted with bricks and rocks you are entitled to defend yourself." The MEP for the area, Richard Howitt
Richard Howitt
Richard Howitt is a Member of the European Parliament for the Labour Party for the East of England. He has been a member of the European Parliament since 1994.-Background:...
, said: "The smoke above Dale Farm is the most visible sign of the failure of Basildon Council to seek a mediated solution." Electricity was disconnected. More than 100 riot police entered the site through the rear fence, and two people were taser
Taser
A Taser is an electroshock weapon that uses electrical current to disrupt voluntary control of muscles. Its manufacturer, Taser International, calls the effects "neuromuscular incapacitation" and the devices' mechanism "Electro-Muscular Disruption technology"...
ed. Bailiffs followed after 12 am. to begin removing illegally erected buildings. Some of the residents had to be forcibly removed, whilst others left voluntarily. Police spent most of that afternoon removing people from the 12-metre high scaffold tower on the front gate, with the help of cherry picker
Cherry picker
A cherry picker , is a type of aerial work platform that consists of a platform or bucket at the end of a hydraulic lifting system.- Design :...
s.
Essex Police
Essex Police
Essex Police is a territorial police force responsible for policing the county of Essex in the east of England.It is one of the largest non-metropolitan police forces in the United Kingdom, employing approximately 3,600 police officers and operating across an area of over and with a population of...
said that there were 34 arrests at the site for offences including violent disorder, breach of the peace and obstruction on 19 and 20 October. A police spokesman said all of the people arrested were activists, not Travellers.
Around 4:45 pm. on 20 October, Dale Farm travellers and supporters walked out of the site. Removal of mobile homes on the site by the bailiffs began and media access to the site was restricted for several days.
The Council said that returning the site to green belt land would take several weeks. The authorities were required to restore any walls and fences damaged during clearance. Farmers in the area blockaded their entrances to prevent illegal occupation of their land.
Before the injunction of 19 September, the Council had said that "The estimated direct operational cost of £6.5m together with estimated post operational costs of £1.5m produce a total of £8m. The eviction was expected to cost in total up to £18 million, including legal costs, and to involve the removal of around 400 residents, including about 100 children. Legal aid to residents from 2005 to September 2011 totaled £188,000.
On 5 November, following threats by Travellers to return to the site, Basildon Council was awarded an order at the High Court to prevent the former residents illegally reoccuping the site. The injunction would place those breaching it in contempt of court.
On 7 November 2011, an application by Dale Farm neighbour Len Gridley to the High Court to force the Basildon Council to remove debris from the illegal site was denied. Gridley said the delay in clearing the site has decreased the value of his property, and has criticized the council's decision to allow the size of the legal site to be increased without planning permission.
Commentary
The Peace and Progress PartyPeace and Progress Party
The Peace and Progress Party is a British political party founded by Vanessa and Corin Redgrave to campaign for human rights. Combining the Redgraves, formerly leading figures in the Workers' Revolutionary Party and the Marxist Party, with others from the media and legal fields, the party campaigns...
has advocated on behalf of the Travellers at Dale Farm. The party called a meeting at Parliament in June 2006, following which actor and activist Corin Redgrave
Corin Redgrave
Corin William Redgrave was an English actor and political activist.-Early life:Redgrave was born in Marylebone, London, the only son and middle child of actors Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson...
collapsed at a council meeting at Basildon Town Hall.
In their Annual Report and Accounts for 2006/7. the former Commission for Racial Equality
Commission for Racial Equality
The Commission for Racial Equality was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom which aimed to tackle racial discrimination and promote racial equality. Its work has been merged into the new Equality and Human Rights Commission.-History:...
(CRE) said:
In 2005, we reported that we had obtained leave to intervene in a judicial review case involving a decision by a local authority to evict a large group of Irish Travellers from an unauthorised encampment on the Dale Farm site in Basildon in 2005. We argued that the council had failed to pay due regard to its requirements under the race equality duty to promote race equality and good race relations when taking the decision to evict. This case was postponed until 2007, due to outstanding planning appeals.
And later, as the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD):
The UK has been the object of an enquiry from CERD under the early warning and urgent action procedure. During its 76th session in February 2010, CERD considered the impending eviction of an Irish and Romani Traveller community from Dale Farm in Essex. The committee expressed concern that the planned eviction of the Traveller community from Dale Farm might imply a breach of Article 5 e (iii), guaranteeing the right to housing.
The media varied in their reporting. According to the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
newspaper website for 19 September 2011:
Hundreds of anarchists turned Europe's largest illegal traveller site into a fortress today to defy bailiffs in what they say will be the 'Battle of Basildon'.
Menacing activists, wearing scarves over their faces, launched ‘Operation Lockdown’ to stop the authorities from bulldozing Dale Farm for a planned eviction this morning.
BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
correspondent Fergal Keane
Fergal Keane
Fergal Patrick Keane , is an Irish writer and broadcaster. For many years, Keane was the BBC's correspondent in Southern Africa. He is the nephew of Irish author John B. Keane....
, who was inside the illegal part of the site, said:
"There is now about an equal split between travellers and supporters. The travellers are certainly grateful for the support of the activists. They are expecting the bailiffs at any time and they are unlikely to come through the front entrance. Wherever they enter the site they are likely to be met by peaceful resistance."
Media coverage
As the largest travellers' site in Britain, Dale Farm has drawn much media interest. The site was featured on the Channel 5 reality programme At War with Next Door in December 2006. It was also featured on the "Children of the Road" episode of the CBBCCBBC
CBBC is one of two brand names used for the BBC's children's television strands. Between 1985 and 2002, CBBC was the name given to all the BBC's programmes on TV for children aged under 14...
series My Life, and in the Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
series, Big Fat Gypsy Weddings.
In July 2011, the expected eviction of the Travellers was the subject of the BBC television documentary entitled The Big Gypsy Eviction. On 19 September 2011, Channel 4's documentary Dispatches: The Fight For Dale Farm covered the relationship between travellers, residents affected by encampments, and the law.