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.......

math - Yes animals defecate and leave urine in lots of places in Britain. This is NOT the same as people leaving lots of poo in a small public space. That is a clear health hazard.

And as I said before I worked with a Traveller family many years ago who dug a hole and buried all their poo. These were romany travellers and they were very clean. In fact I remember them complaining about the crusties who were just starting to travel around then, who often didn't do this.

The Council does not need to provide toilets in an unauthorised site. Travellers need to dig holes and bury their poo.

But tbh it just seems as if you want to make an excuse for any behaviour done by some Travellers that people don't like.

This really doesn't do anyone any favours. I think Travellers are very discriminated against, but defending behaviour by some travellers that is unacceptable doesn't do anything to challenge prejudice against Travellers. In fact by coming out with ridiculous excuses I think you actually encourage discrimination.

Roger - Yes there is cow and other animal poo everywhere in the countryside.

But it is about where the poo is. In my area Travellers ended up in the small driveway of an empty big public building owned by the council. Right next to it was a children's playground.

Pooing in a childrens playground or right next to it, is very different from poo in fields IMO.

Travellers have been with us for centuries and have their very particular cultures and communities and will always need to be in non-static accommodation. Serviced sites should be built but maybe pressure should be on Ireland to also build sites as the travellers seem even more unwelcome there yet it is where they originate from.

Those serviced sites should also be paid for by the travellers who use them, as anyone pays for services, via council tax. Yes to toilets, no to shitting in the woods. It is surely cheaper to provide permanent sites than to go through this ridiculous annual ritual of evictions and clearing up after the travellers, only to find them pitched down the road.

However, the guy from Bournemouth council on the documentary also explained how travellers had destroyed their own authorised site so perhaps there will always be an element of anti-social behaviour whatever facilities are provided (as there is in all society). Perhaps Paddy whatsisname from Big Brother could become a Travellers Tzar and influence his own community positively. I wouldn't put it past this government.

Dale Farm seems to be a pointless exercise at this stage. A bit like rounding up illegal immigrants who have been here for over a decade and sending them back 'home'. Stable door. Horse. Bolted.

Some Travellers are Irish. However Romany Travellers are not. There is disagreement about their origins, but the most accepted origin is Indian, although a very long time ago.

Agree with BakeliteBelle about serviced sites & Travellers paying got them.

Some Travellers set up a site near where I lived in Leeds. It was left in a dreadful state, a horse had given birth and all the bits and pieces associated with mammals giving birth was left on a public footpath next to the primary school - covered in flies.

The field was littered with empty cans, litter, patches of burnt grass.

They eventually left but returned every year until the council put up a low fence around the park and they could no longer get their caravans/cars on.

The way they conducted themselves when they were staying on the park and the state they left it in didn't do them many favours in the PR department with the local community.

I watched Dispatches last night. I thought it was an excellent documetary, with good and bad on both sides.
And I know this may sound petty, but I was disgusted with the teenage girls that won't use a toilet in their caravan as it was dirty. So they go into the woods and spread their waste there.
I can't believe that Math and others are defending this, when people in the third world are dying in their millions because of insanitary conditions.
Math, give me your address, me and probably some other posters would be quite happy to come and crap in your garden anytime.

Do the travelers work?

What sort of work do they do?

And like many other posters on here i'm wondering how they can be classified as travelers considering they have been there for 10 years.

Why should LAs provide serviced sites? -- Why should LAs provide public toilets?
Are you prepared to hold your breath waiting for Travellers to accept the need to live in houses? Do you think AW should have to put up with having her locality used for toilet purposes?

LAs are obliged to provide services that are considered necessary in the UK to everyone regardless of whether they have paid in or not. Hence education, social services, police and lots more services that cost a whopping amount more than a lot of users contribute.

Local Authority Gypsy/Traveller Sites in England paper published by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in 2003 makes it clear that a better policy than laissez faire is needed and that this will cost more than Gypsies or Traveller will generate, but that this cost is justified because costs currently associated with these groups will go down if money is spent smartly. The days of kicking the can up the road should be numbered, as that sort of washing of hands attitude leads to much more expenditure (as has been shown in Dale Farm).

From the paper linked to above:
"There is a legal definition of a ?Gypsy?: ?persons of nomadic habit of life, whatever their race or origin?, excluding members of an organised group of travelling showmen or person engaged in travelling circuses travelling together as such. This was clarified in the case of R v South Hams ex parte Gibbs as ?persons who wander or travel for the purpose of making or seeking their livelihood (not persons who move from place to place without any connection between their movements and their means of livelihood)?. Thus the legal definition is explicitly concerned with habitual lifestyle rather than ethnicity."

(The ECHR definition allows for historical nomadism, and this description is applied to British classification. Travelling is accepted to mean a life consisting of periods in settlement as well as periods of travel, and the Traveller definition also encompasses language, ancestry, traditions)

wrt work (same source):
"There is usually an ideology and practice of self-employment and occupational flexibility. While there are examples of Gypsies and other Travellers in waged employment, the emphasis on self-employment still seems to be strong in England. Traditional occupations have included agricultural work, horse dealing, scrap dealing and hawking. As opportunities and economic circumstances change, so do Gypsy/Traveller occupations. Current occupations include tarmac and other building work, tree and garden work, furniture and carpet dealing, scrap dealing (despite falling prices), and seasonal agricultural work (despite shrinking opportunities and competition from other sources of labour)."

"I'm not saying they should be allowed to break the law, just that there could be a more cost effective way of going about things"

With the laws the way they are now, allowing appeal after appeal, and general dragging out, it becomes expensive. So cost-effective would mean quick, no appeal allowed if no chance of granting (and building on green belt really should mean no chance).

Perhaps if developers had to pick up the council's legal costs when they appealed, this could make a difference. (And I'm including developers other than Travellers, big builders with the cash reserves to apply pressure.)

No appeal allowed? Wow. No, I don;t think I like that idea!

Jesus wept Math. This is either an ideology/cult or a PHd. You just google speels of spout. and never answer
Without googling anything.
Would you be happy with people having a shit outside your house/abode ?

'Some Travellers are Irish'
Yes, I know that. I am talking about Irish Travellers who make up the Dale Farm population as far as I am aware

as opposed to Romany...

Let's all go shit in Math's garden

I'd love to park up in someone's garden or on someone's land in exchange for a small fee. Anyone got a farm or that? If traveller's can do it with no permission, how about the rest of us?

Why should LAs provide public toilets?
Are you prepared to hold your breath waiting for Travellers to accept the need to live in houses? Do you think AW should have to put up with having her locality used for toilet purposes?

Ok so right now I'm going to my town centre and taking a shit in the fountain. By your argument the council should build a toilet where I'm shitting instead of demanding I go where there is one already?

Are you mad?

Maybe Math is one of those types who can't ask for a black coffee in fear of appearing racist

Good information on www.paveepoint.ie

www.paveepoint.ie

Well, everyone has a right to a home, shelter, even if it is not to your liking or specifications etc.

Doesn't fit into your little world of how it should be?! Creep off!

Memories of WWII, anyone?

Why should these people be evicted, actually...?

Who fucked up over 300 million?? Not the gypsies/travellers/Roma/tinkers = old word for denigration of people...

that's for sure...

YOU are the one who was stupid enough to pay those taxes. And now you want to blame them.....

It's not just the human waste but the fly tipping of all the other crap from their 'work' ie the tarmac,hedge clippings etc purely because they don't want to pay to leave it like others working have to. It's the continual refusing to abide by rules I object to wether it be planning regs,dumping rubbish,pitching and other issues I came across when teaching traveller children which you're never allowed to discuss for fear of being called a racist.

Would just like to add if you haven't moved in 10 years you are not a traveller.I was a forces child and I travelled far more than Dale Farm residents have had hot dinners.By the time I was 10 I could barely remember how many schools and homes I'd lived in and I continuously had a father away on exercise/abroad to boot.Can't remember my parents getting support paid for by the tax payer,money for taxis,extra education support and a carte blanche to break the law.

Like travelers I like to camp in the summer.I however pay upwards of £30 a night and I'm not allowed to pitch my tent wherever I damn please and trash the place.

One other thing I don't get why as a country we're responsible for 'Irish' travelers and have to stump up the cash and space for permanent sites. If they originate from Ireland surely the Irish are responsible and why aren't they 'traveling' round Ireland?Ireland has far more green space and the type of land they obviously prefer.I'm sure somebody can enlighten me as it doesn't make sense.

I take it none of the 'travellers shit' brigade have frequented the tower block lifts and stairwells of inner London recently? Not areas often used by travellers, but ankle deep in urine. Male urine, almost exclusively. Should we evict all the men for untoward weeing?

Oh, and the dogshit in parks, the endless unpickedup dogshit in parks. Who should we evict for that?

There are penalties and laws about dogs shitting in parks... so travellers should be able to shit anywhere they want?