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Resist the Dale Farm Eviction

imc-uk | 27.07.2011 07:40 | Dale Farm | Anti-racism | Repression | Social Struggles

On 4 July 2011, some 90 families at Dale Farm, the UK's largest Traveller community, were hand-delivered a final notice of eviction giving families until midnight on 31 August to abandon their homes, or face their entire community being bulldozed. The central government and Basildon Council have set aside over £18m for the eviction battle that could last three weeks. It will be the biggest clearance of its kind, involving the ploughing up of 54 separate plots created on a former scrap-yard purchased by the Travellers ten years ago.

Urgent Call-out for Support: Supporters are urgently needed to help the community resist the eviction. Come to the camp for one of the activity weekends any Saturday between now and the end of August, and join Camp Constant from 27 August.

On the newswires: Solidarity Bulletin 4 August | Colchester Council Hates Gypsies | Solidarity Bulletin 27 July | Dale Farm Info Night, 2 Aug, Bristol | Resist Ethnic Cleansing | Eviction notice served | Previous feature
Elsewhere: Dale Farm Travellers | The University of Esssex Human Rights Clinic | Susan Craig-Green, Advocacy Project

Eviction notice attached to a resident's door
Eviction notice attached to a resident's door


MORE INFO

Activity Weekends

In the run-up to 1 September, Dale Farm is holding activity weekends for supporters. Starting 11am every Saturday, the weekends include:

  • Planning
  • Introductions and discussions with Dale Farm residents
  • Helping build obstacles to make eviction more difficult
  • Legal observer & human rights training
  • Media training, including photography, film making, reportage
  • Peaceful resistance and non-violent civil disobedience workshops

Camp Constant

A mass gathering of national and international supporters of the Dale Farm community will begin Saturday 27 August. To receive email bulletins, sign up here.

From 27 to 29 August there will be a weekend of Traveller history and celebration, practical eviction resistance training, training for legal observers and human rights monitors, and an opening party on Saturday night. Sleeping space is available in caravans or you can bring a tent.

From midnight on 31 August an eviction could happen at any time, possibly without warning. As well as those who will be staying at Dale Farm to provide around the clock support to the community and eviction resistance, as many people as possible are needed to be on standby to come up to Dale Farm at short notice in the event of an eviction. Groups and individuals can pledge to stay overnight. See the Dale Farm website for details.

Directions to Dale Farm

Dale Farm is about 40 minutes from London by train. Directions and maps can be found here. From Wickford Station, it's a 15 minute cycle/45 minute walk to Dale Farm. To arrange a lift, email Dale Farm or call 07757 533380. A cab will cost under £10.

Background

Dale Farm residents live on land they own. They bought the land legally. Arbitrary changes in regulation have been used by national governments and local councils to systematically restrict and remove Traveller communities, serving to promote local racism and intolerance.

This has nothing to do with Greenbelt land. The council argues that it is a critical issue is that the land is ‘Greenbelt land’. This technicality is essential to protect the council from the accusation of racist persecution. But be in no doubt: the council used this land as a brown field site before the Travellers lived here. Far from beautiful green fields, this land was a concreted scrap yard when it was sold to the residents of Dale Farm. The council has failed to honestly acknowledge the prior use of the land in its cynical arguments.

This is not about ‘upholding the law’. The council says ‘everyone must be treated the same’, but Travellers are not treated the same: 95% of Travellers’ requests for permission to build are turned down by council planners across the UK. Councils do not act to protect the rights of Traveller communities to live in peace, although it is their duty to do so. Basildon Council has made it clear they want to break up the community and reduce the numbers of Travellers in the area. Refusing permission to build and evicting the settled Traveller community from Dale Farm is a targeted campaign of persecution.

Dale Farm residents have offered to leave peacefully, so long as families are not broken up. They have worked hard with local supporters, solicitors, and architects to find alternative plots of empty, non-Greenbelt, land which they would be willing to peacefully move on to, to avoid brutal and expensive evictions at Dale Farm. The council has refused to consider or accept these alternatives, seeking only to evict and remove. As a consequence every planned eviction will cause homelessness and devastation to families and to the community.

The council and government intend together to spend £18 Million – despite national and local cuts to services, they are targeting precious budgetary resources on a senseless campaign of destruction. Taking away homes and leaving people homeless, removing children from their local schools, leaving the sick and elderly and many children on the roadside.

imc-uk

Comments

Hide the following 12 comments

I will defend my home to the death!

02.08.2011 11:56

I am prepared to defend my and other peoples home to the death and I mean it! Most of us here feel like that too! The only way Essex council will remove us will be in body bags as we intend to fight to the last man!

Dale Farm resident


Why

02.08.2011 15:14

Why resort to violence, it only proves the rest of the local residence were correct in their perception about the majority of this travelling community.

Travellers who dont travell, how would you define them. Residence maybe?
Residence pay the local council for services, are usually law abiding and pay for their own living.

If I had done something unlawful and got caught, then I would expect the law to use its powers to corect the situation.

Sorry chaps, thats just life.

Even though I have not been rude, abusive or aggresive, I bet my comment will never be shown on this site. Maybe the editors are not brave enough to listen to the other side of this discussion.

I shall monitor this site to see if you prove me right.

Local Resident


Reply to local resident

03.08.2011 11:13

All the people living at Dale Farm have bought the land they are living on. They have also been living there for many years and have spent thousands of pounds on their homes. How would you feel if you were told that you must leave your home on a given date, will have your home demolished and would be given no compensation and offered nowhere else to live? Furthermore all the residents of Dale Farm work, none of us rely on state benefits. We therefore contribute to this country through our taxes and as tax payers should have rights like everyone else. All we ask is for somewhere to live.

Dale Farm resident


Response

03.08.2011 12:02

Owning the land does not give you the right to live on or build on it, I once owned a house that had a garden which was classed of green belt, I was NOT allowed to extend or put any type of structure on it, i was not even allowed to put any hard standing or patio area. Those are the rules, I adhered to them, have you?

Can you swear to god that you pay your way in society like the majority of people do, paying for all your utilities, electric, water, council tax and as for income tax, do you really pay income tax on your 'cash' jobs.

Its not that people wish to move you on. You claim to be travellers, then travel, if you want to be residents then become a resident in the legal way. I've lived here all my life in basildon, billericay and wickford, I bet I have travelled more than most of your travelling community.

What isnt helping is all the threats of physical violence that has been coming from this location for many years. People dont trust your community, as soon as you are recognised, people are on guard. And please dont target the trust issue, trust has to be earned, so if you want it earn it. That could be said for most other things in life, I earn so I can have the necessaties and luxuries in life. Can you same the same thing.

All said and done, you have broken at least one law and this country has procedures in place to rectify it, that is all that is happening. The community that have LEGAL plots are not being evicted and rightly so, if that was happening then the law would be protecting them.
Simples.

Local Resident


@ 'local resident': no, it's not that simple

04.08.2011 07:37

'Local resident' (but this is the internet and it could be anyone including the usual suspects: trolls, cops, other agents of the state) says:

"All said and done, you have broken at least one law and this country has procedures in place to rectify it, that is all that is happening. The community that have LEGAL plots are not being evicted and rightly so, if that was happening then the law would be protecting them. Simples."

This is not a case of lawbreaking being rectified. Basildon District Council is required to make an additional 62 pitches available for travellers. It has failed to do this and rather than go a large way to meeting this obligation by giving planning permission for a site which was, after all, used as a scrapyard for years before it was bought and occupied by travellers, it prefers to spend millions of pounds of taxpayers' money forcing the travellers out of their homes without offering the suitable alternative accommodation it has an obligation to provide. This is far from an impersonal upholding of the law - it amounts to victimisation and oppression.

As for the statement:

"You claim to be travellers, then travel, if you want to be residents then become a resident in the legal way. I've lived here all my life in basildon, billericay and wickford, I bet I have travelled more than most of your travelling community."...

'Local resident' has completely missed the point that travellers' first choice has always been to live on the road, but that this way of life has become virtually impossible to sustain. Laws and by-laws made by people who live in houses, persistent harassment of travellers on the road and demonisation of travellers and their way of life has resulted in them buying their own land to occupy. This also in the face of widespread failure of local authorities to meet their obligation and provide enough sites for travellers.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in Connors v the United Kingdom [2004] ruled that

"the vulnerable position of gypsies as a minority means that some special consideration should be given to their needs and their different lifestyle both in the relevant regulatory framework and in reaching decisions in particular cases... To this extent, there is thus a positive obligation imposed on the Contracting States by virtue of Article 8 [European Convention on Human Rights] to facilitate the gypsy way of life."

Perhaps 'Local resident' would like to talk to his or her district council to encourage it to do this.

anti-racist


@ anti racist

04.08.2011 09:01

If your username is a true refelction on your ethics, then I applaud you. I absolutely hate I believe that Basildon has the largest legal and illegal travelling community in the country. Even WHEN the illegal plots are demolished, Basildon will still have one of the largest travelling population with the various sites within the District. And again, I have no concern over the legal sites or whoever occupies them.

I believe all the residents want is to see the law upheld and restore the pleasant relationship that used to exist with the legal occupants. It’s not a question of land ownership, it’s what you are lawfully allowed to do with your land. Would you be in my corner if I bought a plot of land in green belt and decided to build a house, or are you fighting the cause because you believe it’s all to do with racism. If so, I feel for you.

Locl Resident


Israel/Palestine comparison

04.08.2011 09:38

The way that we gypsies are being treated by Essex county council is similar to the way that the Israeli government treats the Palestinians with house demolitions and refusal to allow planning permission for the building of Palestinian homes. Then people wonder why the Palestinians turn to violence! In Palestine exactly the same thing happens. Palestinians buy land and try to get planning permission to build on it but 9 times out ten this permission is refused. Then when they go ahead and build homes on the land they own they are then face with demolition of their homes by the Israeli army.
See video here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ6aK9GAjig

Dale Farm resident


@ Israel/Palestine comparison

04.08.2011 12:35

You have just made a mockery of this genuine discussion by placing that ridiculous comparison. And I won't waste anymore time on your comment.

Local Resident


ridiculous comparison?

04.08.2011 14:28

Dismissing reasoned comparisons between the treatment of the Palestinian people and the treatment of Travellers as 'ridiculous' without any further explanation doesn't help Local Resident's case.

As far as I can see, the comparisons are valid and unarguable. That's what happens in Palestine and this is what happens to Travellers in this country. The parallels are matters of fact not conjecture, and both circumstances are part of a much bigger picture of oppression carried out by those with wealth and power against marginalised groups of people across the world.

Of course, the powerful would prefer it if we didn't make those connections...

ps


oh dear

04.08.2011 15:08

I am neither rich or powerful, but i do respect the law and abide by it. I am speaking from a knowledgable background I have a good understanding of planning law.

As i stated again and again, The community that have set up home lawfully are very welcome.

Joe Public (local resident or not) would not be allowed to build on 'Green Belt', so why should this community? What make you think this law doesnt effect you?

Basildon is hardly Palestine, or is this just the start and we should all be setting up our own militia, be sensible, you only get one life, dont be a fool for all of it.

Local Resident


Riot

10.08.2011 00:10

Has anyone thought how much this overhanging eviction is contributing to the Riots?

Subterranean


The only good bailiff is a dead bailiff!

10.09.2011 17:07

I tell you this if any bailiff scum cross over the boundary onto the Dale Farm site I will fucking kill them and I bloody well mean it! I don't care if I go to prison for it because bailiffs are the scum of the earth and deserve to die every single one of them! Fuck the bailiffs, fuck the police fuck Basildon council if anyone fare to touch Dale Farm or their residents they are dead!

Dale Farm resident