To think that rights/wrongs aside, a council needing to make £300m cuts should focus it's funds somewhere other than evicting gypsies?

[Blubell]

I know there are massive fors and againsts in the Dale Farm evictions, and I don't want to start a big travellers debate, but in this time of austerity measures, and the fact that Essex council needs to cut £300m in 3 years, is evicting the site now, when it's a case that has been going on for 10 years really the best way to spend the little cash they have? Its been reported it's going to cost the council £18m to return the site - which used to be a scrapyard so hardly a place of outstanding beauty - back to greenbelt, how many carers, libraries etc will be lost to fund that? Just a thought.......

So if the extended family gets too large for the accommodation the council has to find more of the same close by?

The council's protocol could not depend on ethnicity and you know it.

"Find sites somewhere" - just like that a la Tommy Cooper. Suppose nobody wants to sell?

Redesignate greenbelt land - why? It was designated for a reason and that reason endures. Former industrial land? What if there is none up for sale?

Councils don't own the land unless they buy it. They can't do magic.

And you don't give a toss about the locals, do you? You think they are all a bunch of racists and that the allegations of antisocial behaviour or all so many myths.

Do you agree that now that the travellers at DF have taken the matter to court - where there is to be a full but early trial - they (and of course the council) should be expected to abide by the result - whichever way it goes?

I mean of course abide by the result when the appeal process is exhausted.

Redesignate greenbelt land - why? -- because the alternative is unauthorised camps, money spent on cleaning them up, money spent on eviction, hackles of the residents all up, the public fuming...

You seem to think that if nothing is done for Travellers they will all melt away, vapourise. You seem perfectly happy to have them all arrive on someone else's doorstep to be dealt with. Clearly you have learned nothing from the Dale Farm imbroglio. Travellers are not going to vanish off the face of the earth no matter how much you would like to see that outcome.

Again with the silly self imposed apartheid blind alley? Where did I say there should be any restriction on anyone moving onto a Traveller site? I can imagine the clamour for places at the council offices even as I type...

I dont give a toss about the locals,I had the misfortune to read some of their racist comments.

No, nobody does Dipsey.

I hope they do pass the law that will stop people building on greenbelt and applying for pp retrospectively - I care about our greenbelt land. My MP is campaigning for it.

Math If housebuilders of the conventional sort started building on greenbelt and applied for pp afterwards you would not say Well, the people who want to buy the houses have to live somewhere, they are not going to disappear, let's redesignate so why should Basildon (where btw I don't live) give way to physical and emotional blackmail from the persons who have done so at DF?

You don't answer the question: must the council provide more of the same if the numbers expand?

Nor the question: should the travellers accept the outcome of the legal proceedings they have issued?

That some of the locals are racist (and may have become so since this started) is sad but people with racist opinions have the protection of the law too.

Andrewofgg when I first read your post it made me very angry,now it just makes me sad.Can you even begin to understand how it feels to have your honesty and integrity questioned by people,who dont know you but do it because you are part of an ethnic minority.You seem to dismiss rasicism against travellers and gypsies as a petty annoyance they should put up with but they are people too,they have feelings too and their children go to school with children who pick up their racist views from their parents.

Dont waste your time Andrewofgg.

They cant defend the indefensible and so they use the racism card, constanty.

Thankfully the courts dont listen to this kind of sh1t and the Dale Farm illegal settlement will be bulldozed once the process finally stops being dragged out for a few extra days at a time.

There should be an investigation in how the system was allowed to be constantly abused in this way and has so failed the local residents. 10 years of hell - they have all of our sympathies.

Do we actually think some kind of solution will be reached with Dale Farm this week?

What's to stop the travellers bringing appeal after appeal!!

Something has gone rather wrong when Basildon Council are being criticised for trying to implement the law. We can't just not enforce laws when it gets a bit hard or pricey.

Yes, the argument goes round and round - and when it boils down to Andrew's question 'should the Dale Farm travellers accept the legal proceedings they have been issued?' the answer surely has to be yes, as we all agree to abide by the law of the land.

BBC Radio 4 aired a discussion on this very subject the other week and they addressed the issue of resident complaints being branded prejudicial. They concluded that no, resident's own experiences/complaints could not be called 'prejudice' by the very definition of the word.

This can be distinguished from objections to a proposed settlement/planning application - if the community objects to a site on the grounds of 'fear of crime' or 'house prices would reduce' as in the case of the Stotfold site - then yes, this of course is 'prejudice'.

HTH

So if and when the Judge decides which plots can be cleared and how,will the inhabitants of Dale Farm accept this final decision and go or do they then still have to forced out?
And if the Judge decides there isn't going to be any clearance at all,would that come with restrictions as to the amount of 'dwellings/caravans' and or the amount of people? Will they have to register everybody who will be living there?
How will it work? Genuine question as finding it all very confusing.

Yes, thewashfairy; I'm confused, too!

The residents of Dale Farm seem to be rejoicing with each new outcome from the courts, but reading between the lines, the judge isn't saying they won't be evicted, he is just dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's? I could be wrong though.

What seems to be happening is that each time the judge says they have to go, they will launch a fresh appeal to delay things again. Can numerous piss-taking appeals be stopped or do they all have to come to court?

Will they all just move onto the legal bit?!

I'm fed up with it now-God knows how Basildon CC and the locals feel!

But surely,the Judge must be able to give a FINAL decision? Whatever that is ALL parties will have to abide by that? There must be a maximum amount of people that can legally live on the legal part too,non? I'm over simplifying this aren't I?
As far as I understand,they are in court to decide which parts of Dale Farm can legally be lived on and which parts can't and act accordingly? Just don't get what all the dithering is about.......

Just heard the Judge has given BC permission to clear 49 out of the 54 illegal pitches. Injunctions not lifted until tom.morning. Does that mean it's done and dusted now? Are the inhabitants of the illegal pitches going to accept the Judges decision and move away peacefully now that all the legal proceedings have been exhausted?

Ooh-interesting! Have you got a link for that!?

YABU. This law needs to be enforced.

Right-found it now. A few more questions...

1. Why only 49/54 sites? Who's on the remaining five sites that are allowed to stay?
2. Why does BC need to pay 1/3 of the travellers' legal costs?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-15153060

Common sense prevails ...... they say it isn't over til the fat lady sings, but i think she is warming up!

I'll believe it when I see it.

Which bit are you looking forward to most? Do tell....

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-15153060

I think I read that 5 of the buildings/structures were already there when the land was purchased, and so can't be cleared as part of the eviction.

There is still the human rights injunction in place - but apparently there is legal precedent - the court of appeal ruled against the travellers in 2009 on the human rights argument.

I read that the judge was quoted that 'we can't always get what we want....particularly when what we want is against the law'.

All of it aliceliddell. They deserve everything they are getting for wasting so many millions of taxpayer money on a gamble that was only ever going to go one way. They are not above the law.

I suspect the whole process would have been quicker and less painful had a whole army of useful idiots not supported them and given them hope that they could win via the 'persecution' angle.

'we can't always get what we want....particularly when what we want is against the law'

Some sense returning at last!

Are you really unable to grasp the concept of a law being discriminatory? There have been quite a few examples in history - primogeniture, aristos not marrying Catholics, unequal pay for women, etc. The law should protect minorities or you don't have democracy, you have domination.