to think that evicting hundreds of travellers from their site is unfair and immoral

[rocketty]

It's an illegal site. They didn't have planning permission. It's greenbelt...

but it used to be a car scrapyard (not rolling fields and thatched cottages then), they own the land and it's right next to a legal settlement.

They've obviously broken the law by settling here, but on balance, wouldn't it be more ethical to let them be? The children are settled at school and getting an education. Lots of people are prejudiced against gypsies and travellers but they've got to live somewhere.

I've seen the news articles about it. It makes me feel sad.

IT's enforcing law fairly and evenly and is ensuring that tax payers have a belief that the system works and is applied evenly.

Why should any of us abide by any law otherwise. Right, I'm a seperate ethnicity therefore I am immune. It's horse-shite, there is no seperate ethnicity, that's just the get out of jail free card.

I think the overwhelming majority of people who have had contact with travellers (myself included) have not found it a good experience.
As I said before, my local town hosts a relatively small group once a year - maybe 4-5 caravans/families. The upheaval is enormous. The mess they leave isn't made by the odd one or two of them, it's all of them that chuck their rubbish wherever they like, that empty their loos down the riverbank and into the river, that send their children "grazing" in the local supermarket. It's maybe the odd one that steals anything that isn't nailed down, but that's only one of many antisocial
behaviours that they show.
Do they not realise that this behaviour will alienate them from settled people? Its nothing to do with racism! Maybe if they showed a little more respect for the people and area around them, they would be accepted more readily.

also- there simply isnt enough council housing available even if they did agree to live in a house- i work for a housing association and we are building lots, but still demand far outstrips supply. They will simply be moved into the private market, creating a nightmare for landlords and another community.

Nope, still don't see that as a reason to let anyone flout the law.

It looks like the UN are involved, too!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-14763905

Oh, I think they do have the means to pay huge fines actually.

What bubbles says is interesting. As clueless bystanders most of us struggle with the difference between Roma, Romany and Irish Traveller. As a group en-masse they all claim ethnic minority status, and are united in their support of one another against Gorja (sp?) authority. However, I have a sneaky feeling that many decent Romany people have a secret (or not so secret) dislike of Travellers and they resent sharing any kind of cultural banner with them, as their slightly wild and dubious behaviour gives other travelling communities a bad name. I imagine it is something of a dilemma for your Romany Gyspy. They cannot be seen to publicly criticise them, as they share so many issues, but I think the average Romany sees the average Irish Traveller as the ASBO chav of the travelling world! Just a hunch, mind you - I am no expert.

banana- their education may not be important to the childrens parents but it doesnt mean the child doesn't have a right to it. And some education to help they get out of that cycle is better than none, leaving them trapped.
I believe that we have a duty of care to those children and even a little help is better than none.

"'And what exactly is repeated evictions going to achieve?? it is going to be a huge cost to the tax payer, the chilldrens education is going to be further damaged, and it makes life more dangerous for the children as social services won't have a clue what is going on. How is this helping anyone?'"
Of course we could just all bury our heads in the sand, and continue to let travellers flout the law.
Then when the next group of people come along who dont like the way the country is run, or the way others live, they can just ignore the law too.
I mean hey, who needs laws anyway?

wrt education -- English isn't their first language. They speak Shelta (aka Gammon or Cant) and even in Ireland where there are special Traveller schools, teachers complain that government textbooks are nonsensical to the children as they are the standard books aimed at Irish schoolchildren, and have a lot of cultural assumptions behind the texts. Shelta is akin to Irish but different. Efforts to educate really need to take the language into account or they will backfire. The Travellers hold their language dear. (Other ethnic groups, even the Irish, have seen cultural demise follow rapidly in the heels of language destruction. Examples abound in North America).

Then there is also the suspicion that education is being imposed on the children in order to speed up the integration of the community with the settled one, which would lead to its destruction. Plus the fear that girls will lead the charge towards domestication. Traveller society is patriarchal and the maintenance of kinship bonds is of supreme importance, as within each clan there is a hierarchy of males. This is the context which accords them their status. Status comes from being a man and from having a certain place in a certain family. If your clan is broken up and settled in various different estates, where does that leave you, the man who once knew where he stood in his own world?

I'm not trying to be an apologist here for the Travellers, just to shine a little light on their lives, and I agree with Fellatio's last post on the subject. There was a lot of practical wisdom in an old Irish government policy of not handing out cash benefits to Travellers but instead giving food vouchers; the same practical wisdom in Ireland led to the introduction of the children's allowance for all, as it was recognised that money in the hands of a lot of heads of household went straight to the pockets of the local publican and a huge number of children went hungry as a result (cf Angela's Ashes). However, food vouchers used to be traded.

We do have a duty of care to traveller children but we have to balance that with our duty to the rest of the community. It is not the only duty the state has.

Some of the ignorance on this thread is astounding. I'm signing off now.

FellatioNelsonyour hunch is correct ,my mil(now dead) always referred to herself and her family as "traveller" as gypsy was considered derogatory but since the showing of the big fat gypsy wedding ,my husband always refers to himself and his family as Romany gypsies as he now considers the term traveller to be derogatory,the trouble is that we are all lumped together and the law abiding tax paying ones suffer the same abuse.

They really don't speak their language on a day-to-day basis, it's just another support for the ethnic uniqueness of the traveller community. Their language is a variant of Irish and is very infrequently used by travellers.

This is going around in circles.
My thoughts are- they have broken the law by squatting, they do piss off local communities and are involved in anti social behaviour, however the solution to this is not to evict them as this is not going to change their behaviours.

The local council should have made provisions for them to have a legal camp with proper sewage and fresh water facilities, thus enabling the travellers to have some level of organisation and cut down on some of the anti social behaviour they have been engaging in. The children would then have some level of normality and their school attendance could be monitored- not purely for their education, but also for signs of neglect and abuse. This could also in turn lead to the children integrating better as adults with local communities. Of course, the travellers may do everything in their power to stop this happening, however they may not. The young girl I work with has integrated well. But if you keep evicting them from field to field, this will never happen.

No matter where they move to, people will complain.

banana- your post made me laugh....... I didn't realise I was badly educated or ignorant having actually worked with travellers, you learn something new every day!

DCs school is award winning for it's work with travellers.
They have a personal learning tutor, who keep in touch with the travellers. Liasing between the children and teachers. The school send work and homework is returned by email. I think the children are given a travellers pack so they can keep in touch.

scarlettsmummy2 -I get what you are saying but where do you draw the line. There are many Romany gypsies that have bought sites,obtained planning permission( which is not easy as soon as "gypsy site " is mentioned the protestors are out in force),they have gone to great expense to have electricity ,sewerage and water connected,they have done things the correct way.Why should the residents of Dale Farm have everything given to them on a plate when others have worked hard and done theirs legally.

Bubbles I would say the same thing about the can work won't work, give me a house and support me lot (who I also work with on a daily basis).

In an ideal world yes it would be great if the travellers copied the romany gypsies, but unfortunately at the minute the travellers are not going down that route. Perhaps if they were a bit more integrated their attitudes would change, but this is the situation we have and all we can do it deal with it as it is at the moment.

I am not saying it is fair or right, but we also need to be realistic about what the possible soultions are.

I cant see how letting them stay would solve any problems.Yes it would solve an immediate problem for the families involved but it is setting a very dangerous precedent for all the other traveller families in England.

OP says:

AIBU to think that evicting hundreds of travellers from their site is unfair?

OP continues:

It's an illegal site. They didn't have planning permission. It's greenbelt.

My four year-old could wield a gavel about this but the discussion has been very interesting

I think the only way that any problems could be solved would be if the council made sure there were proper utilities in place, thus cutting down on issues with sanitation and electricity theft. Obviously this is only a small part of the problem but it would be a start.

I don't think it is ideal, but evicting isn't going to solve the problem- just move it on elsewhere.

How are you going to stop sanitation and electricity theft?

The way to solve the problem is to encourage people to live by the law, and the way we do that is to stop tolerating them breaking the law, to stop tolerating abuse of the civil code, to make life difficult for people who deliberately break the law within and without their own communities and generally "bring them along the road" in a right and proper fashion according to the rules of the place in which they have chosen to live.

Apparently they don't want to "live in the dark houses" offered with respect under the law by the local authority. However I gather the top ten floors of the UN building in New York are entirely filled with useless gravy-trainers, who with their enormous sympathy for this community ought to be encouraged to enhance their everyday lives with immediate first-hand experience of their twinkling sub-culture.