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

2old2beamum I don't actually approve of the offer in the first place as they are voluntarily homeless. It was Sevenfoldedbloodybodies who seemed to think they should house them and were refusing to so I corrected her mistake.

As for the immigrants near you let's think that through a moment. The council couldn't offer them the houses that others had accepted could they since they'd be living in them. They offered them what they had and by your own admission they had offered the same places to everyone else so its not as though they only offer those places to immigrants.

Not sure which part of that you can argue is objectionable.

What do you mean voluntarily homeless, they are being evicted.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiziganism

That means anti GYPSY for the intellectually challenged among you. (That'll be all of the anti gypsy posters.)

Where do I start? they made themselves voluntarily homeless about 10 years ago when they moved to a place they had no right to live. Imagine if you gave up your house and moved into next doors garden.

They are not being evicted from their homes now, but simply required to move on from a place they have no right to be. It was never their home.

They managed to stall the removal for a long time, but that changes nothing. If you are stuck at the traffic lights a long time that doesn't make that patch of road your home.

They live in the homes they take with them generally so their home is still there.

They have claimed that their culture is dependent on travelling. This was one reason they gave for not accepting council housing so they don't regard dale farm as their 'home' then do they.

But they were not moving into next door's garden. They own the land.

They have not turned down council houses on the basis that their culture is dependent on travelling. They do not accept council housing because their culture involves communal living, rarely possible when scattered around different estates. They turn down council housing because council houses are houses, therefore too hot, and with indoor toilets, which they consider a health hazard almost to the point of being non-kosher. Their culture is marked by far more than travelling -- there is a shared Irish origin, a shared language (shelta) and way of life including marriage customs and attitudes towards children and the old and what constitutes a family unit.

If their homes go with them how are they homeless? You have officially run away up your own rear end.

So... are they into making composting toilets wherever they go? Please tell me they have a tradition of being scrupulously and socially responsible about disposing of bodily wastes.

Math for that matter some of them have even got actual houses in ireland so are not homeless at all. The whole homeless thing is bullshit - that's the point really. They tried to manipulate the rules and people's feelings and although they were successful at the latter they failed at the former and now it's over.

Does anyone know what the position would be if we had said "oh go on here is planning permission" and they THEN sold the site off to developers?

Would we then be unable to withdraw it? Because that would have made quite a lot of profit given that they only paid a lower figure for it when it was unusable for building.

Lots of pitches/sites have outdoor privvies, which they are of course happy to use. Generally if they develop their own sites they build privvies too. On illegal sites most would do what anyone else would do in extremis, they dig a hole and bury the waste. Some of course are not responsible about disposal of waste. There is no 'they' implying 'all' here.

"But they were not moving into next door's garden. They own the land"

I own my back garden. But if I was to build a couple of shacks on it and move in a few families my neighbours would be pretty pissed off. Owning land doesn't necessarily mean you can build on it. Bad argument.

Sorry, meant, what one would hope anyone else would do in extremis (considering the likes of this evidence)...

mathanxiety - they also have a culture of oppressing women and children. Should we also accommodate that?

For someone with a fairly left wing view on things in general, this issue makes me feel like Ann Widacomb.

You can build on it even without pp and if no-one complains about it for four years, and nobody from the council finds out, then you have got yourself a lawful development for all practical purposes.

'The Four Year Rule

Under s171B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the local authority can only take enforcement action within four years of completion of any work which has been carried out without permission. If it fails to take action within four years then it loses its right to do so and though this does not technically render the wonder lawful, it is for all practical purposes.

The four year rule applies to alterations and additions and changes of use to a single dwelling house. If the work involves a change of use to something other than a single dwelling house then the time limit for enforcement action is ten years.'

You can then get a certification of lawfulness.

The way to deal with DV in the Traveller community is to have them running from post to pillar so the social services and groups working with the women have no idea where they are?

The way to deal with DV in the Traveller community is to allow the authorities to legally hound them around the country, thus encouraging a circling of the wagons by the community against all representatives of authority?

The way to deal with DV in the Traveller community is to disrupt the education the children are receiving so they will all end up illiterate or semi-literate and girls will never have the confidence or skills necessary to fend for themselves if their situation at home becomes intolerable, while boys will never have any hope of securing anything better than a marginal scrap-collecting sort of job?

Anti gypsy posters? I obviously can only talk for myself, but I am not anti gypsy, I am anti people who openly flout the law. Whether they be gypsies, bankers, police, teachers or road sweepers! Don;t care where they come from, just that they stick to the rules as I have to.

Agree. Owning the land does not give them carte blanche in this country. If I bought my neighbour's garden from him, then without planning permission built a house there, everyone would rightly expect me to pull it down and if I won't for the council to step in.

From what I remember, the traveler's have been offered alternate accomodation but have turned it down. Some have houses elsewhere already. The council might have even purchased the land back from them had they not asked for £4 million for land worth about £100k.

Basically they've hardly gone out of their way to find a compromise so I fail to see now why the council should continue appeasing them. Appeasement doesn't work.

Not carte blanche. But there's an awful lot of carte grise that none of the very righteous law abiding posters here are unwilling to admit exists.

There are thousands of extensions that are 'lawful for all practical purposes' up and down the country.

It takes two to make a compromise and I would really expect the council to have done so, considering it's other people's money they are so blithely spending, to the tune of £18m as a result of their refusal to countenance anything short of dispersal of the community out of the Basildon area.

How can they justify spending £18m but wouldn't buy the land for £4m?

Is that rational? Does that look like the attitude or act of a body that is capable of compromise?

Unfortunately programs like Big Fat Gypsy Wedding have really not helped the travelling community in the eyes of the media or society in general. I did watch the show and was hoping to be enlightened about the culture and way of like.

I think the program makers missed out on a great opportunity to put forward to good side of the community and although there were parts that focussed on hard working travellers, unfortunately it centred more on the values that some find more distasteful. However saying that I realy don;t think that some of the community has helped themselves or their fellow travellers

Can I just say that now all the earlier hysterics have gone and been replaced by reasonable discussion that I am enjoying this and interested in antoerh viewpoint

Is that rational?

Yes it is rational. Why? Because asking for so much is not only a piss take, it's tantamount to blackmail. And the last thing you should ever do is give into blackmail or it never ever stops.

Had they asked for say £200k, even £300k I think the council probably would have bitten their hands off. More may have been subject to some haggling. But to start off with £4m simply means you are not seriously interested and either totally taking the piss, blackmailing or both.

I agree with you about MBFGW. I think it suffered from serious value deficiencies in depicting another culture so different from the usual middle class tv audience. For starters, they blurred the distinction between Gypsy and Traveller, and it only went downhill from there. The show featured the extreme end of the flashy section of the community as far as I could see, just as the Kardashians (sp?) et al are the extreme end of the community they come from. It's unlikely to backfire on the Kardashians and their friends but I think the consequences for the Travellers and whatever Romany were on the show were more negative.

So spending £18m to effect an eviction is not in any way giving in to anything, alleged blackmail included, but spending £4m would be insane?

What if they had asked for £18m? Would that have been a pisstake or merely very, very ironic...