To think that if your average British citizen cant just buy a field and live on it in a caravan...

[Saggyoldclothcatpuss]

without being slung off in weeks for not having planning permission, then there's no reason that travellers should be allowed to either?
Controversial, I know, but this really bugs me!

I object to Centreparcs! Horrible and overpriced

apaprently they can't do this in ireland, wich is why they are in uk.
apparently

Nancy75 - YABvvU there is a landtrain at longleat no bikes necessary!

the pictures all have bikes, and people looking happy on bikes - I know somebody would make me get on one

tis true - what is it with happy bikey people? Not going to centreparcs anyway - far too pricey.

Is this about Dale Farm by any chance?

I dunno I think people have very low opinions about travellers because the ones that they meet are for want of a better word scum (i.e thieves,robbers, charging school kids to get over a bridge to get to school). (I accept not all travellers are like this however some are)

This site is a green belt site, if someone wanted to build a house on the land and it was refused I doubt there would be this reaction.

The travellers own representatives have shafted them in this case.

I admired the sense of community I saw on my big fat gypsy wedding. No wonder they don't want to live on a housing estate with no real sense of community.There needs to be more sites. They get refused planning permission in most cases just because they are travellers.

They usually get refused planning permission because the sites are in the green belt and there is a very strong presumption against any development in the green belt. I.e, your application for planning permission will be refused unless you can show very (usually exceptional) circumstances why it should be permitted.

Where developments are permitted it is agricultural development / land which was built on before the green belt designation etc. The understandable desire of travellers to live on this sort of land tends to be overridden by the fact that a) if they are not actually moving about, the courts have found that they could be properly housed in a council house and they don't need to live on a caravan site and b) the hardstanding, water supplies and electricity supplies all on their own count as inappropriate development.

There should be substantially more designated traveller sites and thats were the really appalling NIMBYism comes in.

Yet again I find myself arguing this: if no good citizens wanted them removed, it would not cost them £10m. The only reason they are being removed is because pple don't want them there. If "decent citizens" were more tolerant of travellers and installed permanent sites for them, there would be no need for vast and expensive removal operations. And I am convinced that bramble is right about what most people think- there is no lateral thinking there, no long-term view, no concept of the fact that people actually have to be somewhere, among these honest decent upright citizens. Just kneejerk NIMBYism.

What about in my area of North Colchester, where the primary schools are so overstretched with people living in permanant housing, that there are already 5 year olds that have to travel over 3 miles to school. We are waiting for a new 4-18 school to be built in 2015, yet after many years of legal wrangling, Essex County Council has granted permission for a large permanent travellers site here now, well before that new school is open. My DS's primary school is the only LA run school in the area (rest are voluntary controlled and can set pupil numbers and refuse extra children), their classes are running at 30-31 in the infants, and 31-35 in the Juniors already. I don't want MY dc's education to suffer. If that makes me a NIMBY then fine. It will stretch already overstretched services beyond breaking point.

I am assuming they have only done this because once they evict the families from Dale Farm, they have a legal duty to provide them with somewhere to live. So they shunt them over to the other side of Essex to become someone else's problem, instead of finding them permanent housing in Basildon. I think they should be obliged to take WHATEVER housing they are offered, be it a permanent caravan site OR council housing...just like the rest of us poor people who have to take what is offered if we are on the council housing list.

I felt sorry for the travellers on bbc1 last night - they are people and they need somewhere to live. They can't just be obliterated like people seem to think!

I saw the local news the night the Dale Farm residents were issued with bailiff notices of eviction.

Their response? Teach the kids to make petrol bombs and build a barricade of gas cannisters.

I haven't seen anything showing complying with all the laws the rest of us have to follow or show any inclination to be part of the wider law-abiding community. I'm not saying that doesn't happen because I know the media are only interested in showing the worst aspects but generally they seem to expect different treatment to the rest of the world.

I don't get why "travellers" don't travel. i wouldn't object if they set up camp for a few weeks then buggered off. I do object to flouting of planning laws and turning areas into shitholes with rubbish and crime rate rocketing. And yes, I have lived next to a few "taveller" camps unfortunately. The type of people who have no regard for rules such as planning and keeping their kids in school also have no regard for rules such as don't leave shite everywhere and don't burgle neighbouring houses.

I agree, swallowedAfly. Council Tax in this part of Colchester is already grossly over infalted (£1,590 for a 2.5 bed terraced shoebox, anyone?). Why should everyone else have to pay, including parish CT, yet they get all the services for nothing?

Too true, Moog - I am FULLY expecting my next years' contents insurance premiums to skyrocket. Really unhelpful. Will I get a reduction in any of my other bills to cover this? NO.

Most of the traveller children I have taught have been extremely poorly educated and fared quite badly in the education system actually. Not least because there is so much resentment and prejudice against them that they are expected not to achieve whatever their level of ability. Having fixed sites would enable far greater continuity in education and having fixed sites would enable children to have access to clean water for drinking and washing (do we really want children in our country living without these things???)

Perhaps we all bloody hell ought to be able to pitch up on land we own and live how we want to live.

Skelly- give it a try! The worst that can happen is what happens to travellers all the time anyway. They just aren't willing to trade taxes and laws for comfort as most people are.

I'm one of your ?they?. Dale farm?s as much in common with the traveller community as stabbings at a rough inner London sink school is of the sort of lives most of you live.

Prehaps one day I will have money and make TV programs about the wrong end of Gaudja culture and promote it as representing all of you, and we can pity those of you who aren?t like the stereotype that we?ve spread as being what you all but a few, really are. Bet you'd like it as much as we do.

Swallowedafly we not only pay council tax but at D, E and F rates in many places, often with bad or no services in exchange, then get told we can?t say who else moves on even if they are races who don?t live beside each other who want to trash the place. So we move off and leave it to them and the councils and get called bad for not staying and raising our kids in it.

Because someone said Traveller covered lots of different races and made us all the same, none of US should be choosy about our neighbours, but Gaudja of course should be able to, because you land grabbed first.
Were just people, same as you, good and bad ones. We aren?t all uneducated and many of us pay taxes for schools we don?t send our children to and hospitals we dont use just like you.

Your scum?s no better than ours (some?s a lot worse) but don?t let truth get in the way of anything.

Loads of Gaudja survive on benefit crime drug dealing and a life of crime too. Your papers are full of it. But we?re expected to have such low standards that we?d want to move on to your estates and live amongst them!
What about all your smack addicts, killer parents, paedophiles......?

*Are WE really supposed to say 'welcome' to that reality?

it's a big ask.*

We?ve more in common than you like to admit, I'm a mum and a grandmum and even own a Bowden skirt (and yes I did pay for it!)
If the ?them? ignorance didn?t hurt so much the stupidness would be funny.

When you hug your kids goodnight and pray nothing bad happens to them, remember, we do the same. Goodnight.

OK, so at a brief glance I see that we've established that I, a house dweller, can't buy a caravan and a field and legally live in said caravan within said field without planning permission and that neither can a traveller.

So your point is, Saggy?