Conservative-controlled Basildon Council is poised to evict hundreds of Travellers from Dale Farm in Essex, at a cost of £9.5 million. This follows the home office announcement in June that it will contribute £4.65 million to the policing costs, thereby giving the green light to the council’s racist assault.
Dale Farm is one of the largest Traveller communities in Europe, consisting of nearly a hundred separate family plots, mainly owned by Irish Travellers, although there are also some Roma families. While almost half the plots have planning permission, the remainder have consistently been refused planning consent, even though the site was previously a disused scrap yard.
In 2005, Basildon Council, pandering to racist prejudice, voted to demolish the ‘illegal’ plots. Residents sought a Judicial Review and won in the High Court, but the judgment was overturned by the Court of Appeal. An appeal to the House of Lords was denied. In July 2009, the Department for Communities and Local Government informed the council that it is required to provide sufficient land for 62 additional pitches, but Basildon ignored this and in April voted to press ahead with eviction and demolition, subject only to securing additional funding from the Home Office. The planned evictions would amount to ethnic cleansing, sanctioned at the highest level of government.
In September 2010, a report presented to Parliament for the Equalities and Human Rights Commission found that Gypsies and Travellers are the most disadvantaged ethnic group in Britain, with shorter life expectancy, higher maternal mortality and an infant mortality rate 3 times that of than the non-Gypsy/Traveller community. Only 75% of Gypsy and Traveller children regularly attend school. The report blamed these figures on the huge difficulty this community faces in getting ‘culturally appropriate accommodation’, with more than 21% of Gypsies and Travellers legally homeless because they are living on unauthorised sites. The 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act abolished the duty on local authorities to provide sites, stating that local authorities should make land available and that Travellers should provide housing for themselves.
But in the majority of cases, as in Basildon, when families did acquire land, planning permission was refused. Instead, Travellers and Gypsies continue to be evicted by violent bailiffs from their own land and moved on from the roadside by the police.
As the report puts it: ‘The levels of abuse and objection to development for our people are hard to understand but almost universal. Language and attitudes that have been unacceptable since the 1970s to black people, Jews and gays are commonplace in regard to Travellers, particularly when it is proposed that they should live within a community.’
The Dale Farm eviction could begin at any time after 31 August, and the families and their supporters are mobilising resistance; from 27 August, Camp Constant will bring together a mass gathering of national and international supporters at the site to provide round-the-clock resistance to the eviction and support to the community To pledge your support go to http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/ No evictions! No ethnic cleansing!
By Cat Alison
