Dale Farm Eviction

[niceguy2]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-15163750

It seems sanity has prevailed. Let's hope there are no more delays and the site is cleared ASAP

Planning laws are utterly shite in this country I agree. I am moving from my listed building in a conservation area and I cannot tell you the 20 kinds of shit I went through to be allowed to demolish a breezeblock 70s extension and rebuild it in stone in keeping with the property

But they are equally shit for everyone. And actually they sort of do favour non residential development. Perhaps if the travellers kept a sheep in the van and called themselves farmers they would fare better in their applications since agricultural development seems to be less controlled than anything else.

There is an agreement to be found here between the travellers and the local authorities but as others have said, it needs to be between the laws of the land and the culturally protective laws that exist. It requires compromise and patience and perhaps the heat taking out of the situation with a short term agreement followed by a longer term plan.

I never said the way Travellers live is illegal. But it is illegal to live on a piece of land without planning permission.
As for your second post, all of those things are part of certain ethnic minority's cultures, which are against the law in this country. 'Precedent' remember? If it is necessary to accommodate all aspects of minority cultures regardless, you can't just allow what suits remember, we have to allow them to live the way they want. All of them. Because someone started a precedent.

Some visit family. Some travel for seasonal work. Traditionally, they used to travel for seasonal farm work and some still do, though that is not available as much as it was in the past. Summer tends to be road repair and building season so they do a lot of that. They keep families close, so they all up sticks if the main breadwinner gets work elsewhere. My uncle used to employ Travelers in his contracting business rehabbing older houses in the London area. Outside work was done in the summer and they used to appear year after year making inquiries about employment.

'Someone pointed out yesterday - they call themselves Travelers, yet they want to stay in one place forever.
How does that make sense????'

The basic problem there is the assumption that they want to stay in one place forever. They want a base to come back to when their seasonal work is over and continuity of schooling for their children.

Haggy, none of the above are part of the culture of Travellers or Gypsies, though Gypsies used to be accused of kidnapping babies.

And actually, regular beating and raping of wives seems to be a part of good ole British culture too, since it comes up. Hence Women's Aid.

And the police and social services are kept busy with reports of cruelty to children, no?

Bodies in rivers? Occasionally.

I never said that they were. Again, you are missing the point. No minority culture in this country is allowed to live outside the law. Neither is anyone not in a minority culture. I don't give two shits how travellers chose to live their lives as long as they do it within the law.
Nobody should be allowed to live outside the law, whatever the law, because then you start a precedent, and then others want the same.
Living on an illegal site isn't really that bad, but if travellers can be allowed to live outside the law, then what's to stop anybody else from other minorities doing the same. And if minorities get away with it, then why not members of the majority?

happy, they cant travel due to the lack of lay bys and lack of sites.

they dont want to stop travelling, they are being stopped.

they have give up on travelling so are now trying to stay together as a minority which is in their beliefs. They believe our society will encroach on theirs and the they dont want people marrying outside the community or changing their way of life.

@ crimes against fashion

haggy they are living on illegal land as most of their applications are turned down. What they do is move onto land in the hope it will go through if they are one it. They have more chance of it going through if their already there. Then what happens is the settled community send in 3000 objections. The councillors who are on the planning panel and want re elected go with the settled community in case they loose votes.

Travelling is not outside the law. Living in a trailer is not illegal.

Living on an illegal site is sometimes absolutely necessary, because vanishing into thin air is not possible.

What are they to do? If they are to live within the law and there simply are not enough authorised pitches (and that is a fact), what exactly do you suggest they do?

It's nothing to do with them being camped on a piece of land which would never get PP, whoever posted the application then? It's just because they are travellers?? Right! And the locals only complain because they are travellers? Again, it's not because of where they are parked?? Or anything else, but just because they are travellers?! Okaay! Riight.
So when they turn up in a field in a designated area of outstanding natural beauty, with planning restrictions tighter than a ducks arse, the only reason planning is denied is because of being travellers

I suggest they compromise. Use legal sites when they are available, and respect them, so there is no excuse to close them down, or accept housing, so that their children have a stable base and can attend school. They can then work or claim benefits, and still hit the road in the school holidays, which is what you said they aim to do anyway. Nobody is saying they must abandon their traditions, just adapt them. The same way as other minority groups have to.

I posted a link upthread to the story of a man who bought land from a farmer and didn't get to stay as the neighbours objected very strongly to the presence of a Romany family in their neck of the woods.

This covers a lot of the issues related to planning applications, and also reminds councils in Devon that fostering good relations is part of the statutory responsibility of councils under the Equality Act 2010. Basildon DC obviously didn't get the memo.

'So when they turn up in a field in a designated area of outstanding natural beauty, with planning restrictions tighter than a ducks arse, the only reason planning is denied is because of being travellers'
A former scrapyard that already holds one developed Traveller site of 7 acres as well as numerous other houses and buildings is a long way from an area of outstanding beauty. And the presence of all the other buildings suggests to me that planning restrictions are not quite as tight as a duck's arse. More like a goose's in fact.

The problem is that they are legally entitled to live in their trailers surrounded by their large extended families on sites, as that is the central element of their culture.

And as long as they are recognised as an ethnic minority the basic fact that that is what LAs must accept about them, remains.

The link in my previous post explains the legal framework and why housing is not the answer.

the planning on other land is also refused for reasons such as

too close to motorways
inadequate drainage
opposiition from the settled community
no access roads

legal sites are not available for all the travellers hence they rock up on other land. There is also the fact that they are discriminated against and suffer abuse in social housing. The settled council community dont want them next to them either.

You have got to appreciate, if your brought up as a roma or traveller with all your extended family for all your life, moving into social houses with strong predjuduce from the locals on your own cant be easy. There is a lack of support to help them make the transistion.

What they have done in Ireland instead of building and maintaining sites is to build settled housing for them. From info i have read it seems for most of the time to work. They face worse racism in Ireland than here when travelling and using sites.

My only close contact with Travelers was in one local car park, I left my car, went to the library and 30 min later it was blocked by expensive trailers driven by massive trucks

I got spat at and they shouted and swore at me when I asked them to let me move my car out....

I drive every day by our local sites where Travelers live, hard to say who lives there.
Kids get picked up by the school bus - mums sometimes wait with their kids wearing sleepers and night gowns :)

I can't believe some people are defending the actions of the dale farm "travellers" and that an excuse for breaking the law is that they need to be close together in an extended family situation.

Up and down the length and breadth of the country peoples offspring have been priced out of living near their families these people are not a special case.

After watching the documentary on them and YES they are Irish not Roma my sympathy waned they are a violent bunch.

Haggy you did make some very good points there.

The trouble is there are a lot if sweeping generalisations from both sides here.

On the one hand, people are accusing gypsies/travellers/Romany etc of all sorts. I have to say I have never met any travelling families so I don't know whether they are true or not, however I will admit to being concerned if a group of families rocked ip here.

On the other hand you have the supporters of the travellers who don't accept the fact that there are many negative stories about the travelling community.

I don't think either are100% right. As I've said many times it is the few who cock it ip for the others.

I've heard stories of travellers where they have been hardworking, good neighbours, the trouble I'd that isn't a good story for the media.

The travellers do need to hp themselves. If they looked after the sites and behaved as the majority did then there would be no cause for people to not want them.

Dale farm has just reinforced people suspicions and ideas and the really dad thing is I think a lot of the trouble was caused by the professional protesters.

I agree that they need to highlight their case but they went about it totally the wrong way and have alienated people.

Rightly or wrongly when your la proposes a new site and it's near you you will have those images.

If the travelling community want to live life their way, they need to do it in a way that doesnt impact everyone else in a negative way.

'They want a base to come back to when their seasonal work is over and continuity of schooling for their children.'

Yes, and I would like a bijou little pied a terre in London for weekend jaunts.

To be honest I actually don't give a flying rats arse about the fact they are traveller's. Do you expect me to give a toss about the fact a black guy got his application for an extension turned down? No. And rightly so.

The bottom line is did they have planning permission? No. Did they appeal? Yes. Did they win? No. Did they appeal again.....yes. Did they win? No. And so on for 10 years.

So ultimately it's very difficult for me to believe that the whole system is engineered to be racist against them. I know racism is around but the entire system? From planning officers to judge after judge?

I know some people love to believe that the government is evil and everything's a huge conspiracy.....ironically it's usually the very same people who want the govt to do more and tax more.....But in my experience, the simplest answer is usually the correct one.

No planning permission.....you have to leave. End of.

needanewname - i have to say i agree. it is not racism. it is not perceived as such by the majority of traveller families either. I am marrried into this community, and whilst not being born a traveller, i am married to one and my family are raised within the community. The majority of our community feel like yourself, that they have worked hard to gain the rights they have, they live on legal, registered static sites, the traveller families living on dale farm where, on the whole, irish travellers who did not care to go through the system. They should rightly be evicted, it cannot be one rule for one and one for another for fear of a community screaming "racism!". Rules are rules. They broke them. No planning permission - no can do.

sorry that response should have been to niceguy 2, although needanewname, i should thank you for being so unjudgemental about our community. Its a shame everyone else cannot be so open minded and thoughful. However, i do get that almost all that gawja (non traveller) families see or percieve to know about us is gained from negative reports in the media - after all, positivitey would hardly be a good selling point would it?

It really just comes down to the fact that you can't just do whatever you like, regardless of your ethnic background.

I live in London. My neighbours have built a house in their back garden without PP.
You could move in there. I doubt you would get a council house though because no-one gives a flying feck who does what round here. So you would be left in peace to live there for as long as you like

We are just a bunch of chavs who can deal with people living on top of us with no regulation. I dont live anywhere pretty so its fine to feck us over.

As I said up thread - double standards.
Dont kid yourselves that you are protected in ANY way.

"If 90% of Traveller applications are for the sort of housing they normally occupy, in the sort of surroundings they normally place it in, in other words where they, given their culture, feel at home (and obviously this is land that they own and not land that is someone else's) then they are being sent a message that their preferred type of accommodation (trailers and chalets with separate wash blocks and toilets) is not acceptable to the rest of society"

math - the difficulty in getting pp is due to 'change of use' not the style of home simple. agricultural/commercial to residential is a very hard bridge to cross...whatever you want to build. if they were applying for bricks and mortar they would be likely to be less successful (as it is easier to get 'temporary' structures approved under the 'travellers caravan' dispensation).

the reason planning officials don't like vans is because van becomes mobile home, becomes chalet, becomes brick-built bungalow..'planning creep' as it is called. they are suspicious of everyone trying to do any such thing.

although a farmer is more likely to be successful as there is most allowance for them in the regs.