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.......

would it be such a terrible thing if the process to prosecute took a slower path if it meant saving other services

It has taken 10 years because we bend over backwards to be sure we are being fair. They have been made all kinds of offers to end this, but they insist on breaking the law. We have no choice but to enforce it.

We should probably have just arrested them the first week, towed the vehicles away and then released them. That would have been cost effective I guess.

This is a problem of their making not ours.

Btw you say "There's already a site there, they're not moving them all on, just reducing the amount of travellers, so it's not going to magically rid the area of them" as though ridding the area of them was the aim. That's not what this is about.

What pisses me off is the suggestion that people of a particular culture have some "right" to live near each other. Apartheid by choice?

The travellers have apparently obtained a High COurt Injunction preventing the council dismantling the structures - just listening to R2 News in background.

It's not all their making though is it? A lot of the residents were born there or small children when they moved in. As a society wehave lots of rules that are in aplce to protect children (not just SSD, but the benefit system is designed that way, education law etc).

I do beleive the tarveller community faces an uphill battle wherever they go: heck, they tried to build bog standard affordable housing erhe and even the bloody Vicar was out protesting (not me! I was hoping we might get one but apparently even with ds4 being born in the house we're not local enough for the locals to care iyswim. Woreva )

If that's what people face within their own culture, well I can imagine how the family of travellers parked in the derelict buildings down on the industrial estate lcoally ended up there. And I fear even more so for teh kids of 80 famillies- becuase that's a lot of pitches to be found.

Personally i think the traveller community should erm....travel.

How can you be called Travellers if you pitch up in one location for ten years?

Travellers are an ethnic minority and are recognised as such. Treating them the same as settled people does amount to discrimination because it has a different effect on them and causes disadvantage to them. There is no requirement for you to like all members of an ethnic minority, or to like their culture, in order to understand the ways in which discrimination operates. You may wish to say that mainstream British culture and Traveller culture are inevitably incompatible, but you can't really maintain that applying existing planning regulations is having an equal effect.

I don't think people have a right to be housed near anyone but I think it is usually sensible: having amde the decision to move away from family then ending up as a carer family- well our chances of making a go of it wrt to working / having a social life etc dropped dramtically becuase of the complete lack of support group. SSD consider struggling famillies with nobody local a magnified risk becuase isolation can be so horrible and make people ill.

'as though ridding the area of them was the aim. That's not what this is about.'

Oh yes it is what this is about.

Where to though niceguy? There isn;t anywhere and tbh i'd rather they did not if only so the kids get a chance at schooling and being on people's radar- IIRC childhood illnesses and disabilty are more comon in their community so staying within a service area makes long term sense.

Googled for stats and found: The 2004 Health Status of Gypsies and Travellers in England report by Sheffield University showed that infant mortality among Gypsy and Traveller Communities is three times higher than the national average.3 A Gypsy or Traveller mother is nearly 20 times more likely to lose her child before their eighteenth birthday, than the rest of the population.

Recent research from Ireland shows that Gypsy and Travellers are three times more likely to commit suicide.4 It is thought that this figure is higher for England.

(www.idea.gov.uk/idk/core/page.do?pageId=17917440)

So I would think that enabling people to stay near healthcare services is pretty important. NOT to the exclusion of adherence to law of course not, but councils should provide appropriate aplces for them to pitch. Many no longer do.

aliceliddell I take it that you agree that applying to everyone the laws about paying your taxex, registering your businesses for VAT, insuring your vehicles, is not discriminatory?

Neither is applying the planning laws to everyone.

SanctiMoanyArse you say "It's not all their making though is it? A lot of the residents were born there or small children when they moved in.*

That's only because they have been breaking the law for a very long time They were newly arrived when this began.

If you are saying it will affect the children so the law can be broken then you support every criminal whose children profit from his crimes.

If I steal your car and use it to drive the kids to school can I keep it?

mathanxiety I didn't realise you hadn't been keeping up. They are breaking planning laws. Google it or read the thread. If you have proof of other motives then feel free to visit your local police station with the evidence.

They,ve got a temporary injunction stopping the council taking any action before Friday.

I like you niceguy :)

It is generally far better for communities that are not in any way similar to mainstream communities to be able to live together in self-sufficient groups -- self sufficient as far as their own social support networks, childcare networks, and su0port for the elderly networks go; all are important aspects of Traveller culture. They depend hugely on extended family. This is especially important for the women.

Many groups whose culture is virtually third world in many respects experience trauma and disaster when urbanised or settled or integrated randomly among the general population. It's not apartheid or self imposed separation in any sort of negative sense to house or settle Travellers in groups. The Hmong in the US live largely in Fresno, California, Wausau, Wisconson and Minneapolis-St. Paul in Minnesota. Many other groups have been steered into particular communities too. Refugee settlement by country of origin and settlement destination US. Keeping groups together is done partly by design -- the initial plan then results in others being attracted to a community already in existence. Keeping groups in one place together makes identification of need and provision of various social services and interventions easier. It prevents duplication of expenses and allows for best practices to be developed quickly.

It is not breaking the law to do what the law allows you to do, i.e. settle on a site and then apply for retrospective pp, or apply for pp and start settling there while awaiting the pp. It is not against the law to appeal an initial unfavourable decision. The same legal process that allows the Travellers to appeal is also available to you, Onagar, should you wish to avail yourself of it.

If they have houses in Ireland, what are they doing in Basildon? I don't understand and would be grateful if someone would explain.

There's a planning dispute with a Traveller family near me - the head of the family bought farmland and has put several chalets and static caravans there. It's on a floodplain so he was refused planning permission, same as anyone else would be (no-one else is allowed to build around there either). He's dragged it through the courts for years, costing the council hundreds of thousands of pounds. He doesn't have a leg to stand on but has cost everyone else round here a huge amount of money. There is a Traveller site a few miles from where he lives, dunno why he can't move his family there.

Btw, my council has insisted that people tear down houses built in defiance of planning permission (most recent case I saw in the paper was an obviously very wealthy couple who had bought a house that must have been worth £1.5m and knocked it down without consent - in a conservation area - and built something without permission). Millionaires and Travellers are being treated the same way by the Council, only the Travellers get to stay where they are for the best part of a decade while they spin it out.

well, it kind of is, because you won't have your entire family and society uprooted and separated by enforcement of planning laws, will you? But they will. Maryz I said ^ that you don't have to like the site to see it's discriminatory to evict them. Maybe we need totally different legislation that doesn't favour oneg group over the other. Would that even be possible?

Oh come off it, Math, retrospective planning permission is not intended to allow someone to do what the hell they like in defiance of the law. Someone who builds on green belt land knows full well they will never get permission. Applying for retrospective is just a way to delay enforcement.

Some guidance I found on retrospective planning permission.

What Is A ?Retrospective Planning Application??

If building works start and planning permission is required and has not been obtained, retrospective planning permission will be required to regularise the development. A 'retrospective planning application' is simply an application that is submitted before permission is obtained.

An owner or developer should never rely on a retrospective planning permission application to get unauthorised development approved. Anyone doing this is taking a considerable risk and may face formal enforcement action

Councils enforcement officers will only encourage an owner or developer to make a retrospective application if they consider that they may be granted planning permission for the development. However, enforcement officers can only advise on this. The retrospective application will be dealt with by one of the planning officers in exactly the same way that they deal with any application for planning permission.

It doesn't matter what you think a law or a process was meant to be for, Edam. That is the beauty of the law -- it can develop a life of its own.

Most councils have found that it is cheaper to turn a blind eye to the sort of Traveller initiative that so many are up in arms at and fulminating against here, and grant the retrospective planning permission, because it is far cheaper for the average council to countenance a private Traveller camp on a patch of Traveller-owned reclaimed industrial land than it is to provide pitches. It cuts both ways.

Niceguy nope, but I think children desreve to have thir basic needs considered ahead of adults which includes a roof and stability.

Would I be happy with this near me? Yep, I was last time, even with the really obnoxious anti-site-coordinator getting shirty. That was pushing 15 years ago, no issues there now. Family still lives there.

So you've still not grasped that they are being evicted for breaking the law, and have already been through every available process and lost? And that nobody wants them as neighbours, not even other Traveller sites because they have such a bad reputation. And that they are not homeless, and own houses in Ireland, and one family is building an estate of homes there?

Its Friday now is it?

The couple with their hands encased in a drum full of concrete are going to need a bedpan.

Was that to me?

becuase again that is the adults.

yes I hark on about kids: heck I come from a kid's charity background and grew up on that same sink estate before that. Until I actually see some evidence that the kids will get some form of continuity of education and ehalthcare then I am unhappy about this. The school will thrive if they move on- so where do the kids attend? Don't get me wrong, I am pretty pissed off with any aprent who would willingly put their child through this and I was really disguested by the kids on the picket line- we potentially face homelessness and my kids will not know and they will not be meeting a bailiff either. But I still want to know the kids are OK.

No, not you at all Sancti, and I agree re the adults. But they have had a 2 year grace in which to move their children and get them settled in the houses they own. I do feel terribly sorry for their children. But it is their parents responsibility to care for them and ensure their needs are met, and they have had both the time and wherewithal to do both.