'No planning permission.....you have to leave. End of.'
As MrsDeVere said, if you think you are protected by planning regs, haha, think again.
Surely it is obvious to those talking about 'the law' that for eight years judges and appeals boards gave the Dale Farm Travellers the OK to stay?
This means:
It was Basildon who insisted on dragging the process out by constantly appealing,
Many judges thought the Travellers had a leg to stand on, and
When it comes to planning, you can't really predict what a judge may decide. It may not be a simple case of 'no planning permission...you have to leave'.
'End of' is a sentiment that doesn't really sit well with the fact that the law develops, and the fact that it is open to many interpretations (hence the legal profession).
The approved half of the Dale Farm site does not seem to have experienced the transformation from vans to brick. The buildings that are there are chalets. If change of use in Dale Farm is an issue, then why is half the site approved? Why are there other (brick) residential buildings nearby -- see an aerial view here? As you can see in the photo, there is a lot of development in the area. Hence the fact that there are neighbours to complain in the first place.
For the most part, those Travellers who still wish to maintain the mobile life are not going to bother with a brick building. If they wanted a brick house they would accept the offer of council housing. Most Traveller sites are situated on land such as Dale Farm, which was formerly a scrapyard after all, so a change of use to accommodation of Travellers might be a change for the better. Van creep doesn't seem to have happened in the approved half, where the dwellings are chalets. If they are on their way to brick then it is definitely a very slow creep.
What is wrong with brick anyway?
Is it preferable to have so called greenbelt or to allow people to live their lives free from fear of eviction or from crippling rent in communities where housing is short? This is a problem that applies not just to the Dale Farm Travellers but to everyone affected by the housing shortage. That article by Brendan O'Neill linked to upthread was tongue in cheek but there is an issue here of values greenbelt or other land vs. people's need to live somewhere those talking of the need for the greenbelt and the sacred nature of land and countryside may never have been faced with the sort of rent bill a lot of urbanites find themselves facing, or the kind of conditions a lot of people have to deal with on an estate.
A while back there was a brouhaha about the poor being forced to move out of London 'Housing benefit cut would make London unaffordable' -- the link between the sacred cow of the British countryside and the overcrowding and high rents of urban areas doesn't seem to be apparent to many here who are complaining about Travellers jumping queues and taking scarce resources from a society where there is not enough to go around. The ultimate victims are being blamed here for the shortcomings of policymakers. The lack of attention to housing needs of the poor, all the poor, affects huge numbers of people. The Tarvellers don't even want the houses that are available. They would be fine with paved and serviced pitching sites.