Dale Farm fight returns to high court

The travellers were about to be evicted on Monday, before they won a last-gasp injunction preventing the authority from clearing the site.

The judge, Mr Justice Edwards-Stuart, said there was a fear that measures “may go further” than the terms of the enforcement notices allowed for clearing the UK’s largest illegal site. He directed that Basildon Council should serve a schedule on the residents specifying what was proposed for the 51 unauthorised plots on a plot-by-plot basis.

The authority has complied with that order and is now set to put its case before the judge in London again – aiming once again to clear the land.

The Dale Farm representatives have accepted that the enforcement notices were valid in themselves and that the council was entitled to proceed in conformity with them.

‘Over-enforcement’ fears

However, there was concern about “over-enforcement” resulting in total clearance – including structures entitled to be there. Granting a temporary reprieve on Monday, the judge told them: “I appreciate it is a deeply unpleasant situation but unfortunately this is a road which is reaching its end and there is sadly no mileage in prolonging the agony.”

Repressive policies disguised as planning regulations are discriminatory. United Nations

Bailiffs working for Basildon Council had planned to start the clearance of the six-acre site on Monday, but the operation – which is estimated to be costing more than £1m per day – was postponed while the legal wrangling is resolved.

Council leader Tony Ball said he was frustrated by the delay but added he was convinced the injunction would be overturned once the authority presented the full facts.

Sympathy

The clearance of Dale Farm follows a decade-long row over unauthorised pitches. There are 34 legal pitches on the neighbouring Oak Lane site.
Many travellers had left the site in anticipation of the clearance but have returned this week in the hope they will be allowed to remain. Basildon Council says that, if it is successful, it will be in a position to start the clearance as early as Saturday.

Separately, it has emerged that members of the International Expert Group Meeting on Forced Evictions, meeting at the UN Human Settlements Programme in headquarters in Nairobi, have written to the traveller community of Dale Farm expressing sympathy.

The letter, signed by more than 30 representatives from different countries, said: “Repressive policies targeting gypsies and travellers disguised as planning regulations are discriminatory, whilst inclusive national strategies that are in line with human rights standards generate real progress in addressing issues of exclusion and marginalisation.”