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.

I don't understand why Travellers can't buy, using legitimate means, loads of adjacent or nearly adjacent properties, and live in their properties with large extended family groups part-time. I can think of other ethnic groups that effectively do that. I have White British friends who mostly do it, for that matter.

Math you are contradicting yourself.

You say they should be allowed to stay because they want to stay.

You also say "in general, the travelling aspect of the culture is being squeezed out".

Which is it.

I hope they all go and live in your garden next week so that you might have a clue.

"Travellers have different customs and are motivated by different things than the majority of the dwellers in the UK."

Examples if you wouldn't mind. I'm too tired to ask politely but I'd like to know what motivates them to break the law and throw poo into school playgrounds. Also their customs that are positive and not negative.

I don't think Math is defending them particularly. She is just saying that we should be thinking laterally for a solution as the current stance doesn't actually make the problem go away.

But one thing's for sure - allowing Dale Farm to stay is the LAST thing that will make the problem go away. It will be a massive green light to encourage more of them to do the same elsewhere.

YY she is defending them, I just read back

Christ, it's like banging your head against a brick wall.

1. They do NOT own the land they are squatting on. They own a fraction of it, and are legally entitled to live on that fraction. The rest is an illegal camp on greenbelt land. That is why they are being evicted.

1. They have dragged this through every possible court, and taken every possible measure to delay eviction. Meanwhile more and more of them have moved into the illegal area of the camp. Not the legal bit, the illegal bit.

1. They may well want to live with their extended family. But let's bear in mind that they are planning to use their children as a human shield. And that they treat their women like second class citizens. And like it that way.

1. Money has been poured into education etc for them. Yet they pay no taxes and contribute nothing.

1. There is a damn good reason why nobody wants to live next to them. And it's not NIMBYism. It's self preservation.

1. They are perfectly capable of purchasing houses next to each other, as other ethnic groups in our society have done. They could then park their caravans there and go off travelling legally, as does every other fucker in this country who owns a caravan.

1. There is absolutely no excuse in the world that can explain why they attack midwives and the fire brigade when they are sent in to help them. Yet they do.

I suggest anyone who thinks they are hard done by goes and lives in Crays Hill. You can find out the hard way exactly what it is like living next to a traveller camp.

'I think generally we treat travellers very badly and rarely give them a chance. They often behave badly in return. If we want to continue this cycling relationship of mistrust and bad behaviour, on both sides, then aggressively moving families on will certainly help to maintain the status quo.'

Other way round, in our case. When my children started primary school I didn't realize that the angelic looking children with blond hair and blue eyes were travellers. When they ganged up against my five year old son, eight of them, I thought they were just local children. It took some weeks before I heard about the drugs, dog stealing, illegal hare coursing, thefts, etc, that their fathers were involved in. I actually liked some of the little girls and one or two of the mothers. She eventually moved her family away because she had married a non traveller and wanted a respectable life. I think some of the women are actually very family minded people. It has been the men I have found intimidating.

We started school with an open mind, no prejudices. We saw the school pouring time, resources and money into trying to encourage attendance and good literacy. Whereas the one mother would respond and insist her children turned up, she found it reallyhard when the rest of the clan regarded school as an irrelevant inconvenience.

You don't need to be particularly literate to intimidate, rip people off, thieve from old people and lay crap tarmac drives that disintegrate in the first frost.

Maybe we should be listening to the people on this thread that have experience of living near travellers, the majority from what I can see, having negative experiences.
I can also write screeds from the Guardian and the other papers and see it all from the travelers point of view, but I don't live there and from what people are saying it sounds horrendous.

I have just realised that the first post I made on this thread, which gained 7 comments of support, and was descibed as 'calm', 'excellent', 'spot-on' and 'fantastic' has been deleted. I have no idea why. I can't remember it.

Oh Fellatio please don't go. You are making so much sense on this thread that I don't have to bother thinking too hard or attempting to post anything. I even thought the same as you about Riven.

You had a thread deleted

I am firmly backing Sarah and Curry

I am also from Essex, I live in a town mentioned further upthread, When the Gypsies gathered on a local field for two weeks recently the knock on effect was shocking.

Pubs closed early every night (what does it tell you if the landlords would rather lose money than serve gypsies)

We have a large Asda George with two entrances/exits and one was closed off as the theft of clothing in the first few days was shocking.

Crime suddenly rocketed. A friend of mine had his house broken into and jewellery, phones, and an ipad stolen.

Police presence went from seeing the occasional car, to one one occasion, two riot vans, four horses and six cars in Asda carpark.

From personal experience a Gypsy woman had her children in Asda, they were emptying of the shelves onto the floor and she was ignoring them, as were the staff. As I pushed my trolley past I clipped the heel of the wellington of one of the children who told her mum i had 'pushed her with the trolley' The woman started screaming at me. I ignored her. When I got to the car she stood in front of it so I couldnt move shouting and waving her hands about. I just sat there untill one of the police moved her on.

pressed post early..

my cousin used to live near Crays Hill and her life there was awful. She has recently moved but the level of intimidation and threats was horrific.

They need to be moved on. They are flouting the law, if they can get away with it then what is the point of a legal system. It will open up a huge can of worms.

It just said on the news that the eviction will take place in 2 weeks - any bets on them moving on before then? Thought not...

Sarah they do own the land, they own all of it.

They have planning permission to build on a part of it.

The rest is greenbelt without planning permission. This is presumed why it was bought - it was cheap.

They won't be evicted from the site, they cant' be. They can be evicted from their homes, and their homes can be towed away or taken down and stored. This is what will happen. It's their own fault.

As to who started it - why, whoever is claiming it was not the travellers needs to imagine that the world is wrong and the travellers are right.

I am shocked by the prejudice and bias that math shows.

She is in favour of some people having to obey the law, and some people not having to obey the law, based on her personal sympathies for the ethnic or cultural group that she thinks they belong to.

That is shameful. It is entirely equivalent to the bias and prejudice shown by those people who used to say "no dogs no blacks no irish" based on their own person opinion of different cultural and ethnic groups.

Did they really delete all the posts of personal experiences? How ridiculous.

Ho ho I just read back and saw that so many posts have been deleted. How utterly, utterly ridiculous.

yy some were too much.

It doesn't matter that much really. Tis only a thread.

2. They have dragged this through every possible court...

Is this done on Legal Aid? The impression I get is that Travellers are generally too poor to get their preferred type of housing in a more lawful manner... but if that's so, how do they manage to drag stuff like this thru the courts for years?

Any links to news stories of Travellers being horrible to firefighters midwife(ves)? I assume you mean NHS midwives? The only relevant webpage I can find has a very positive tone.