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Dale Farm: Let Us Build New Homes

November 29, 2007: Travellers facing eviction at Dale Farm, the UK's biggest Gypsy settlement, are seeking permission to build alternative homes for themselves.

They have lodged a formal appeal this week against Basildon council's refusal of planning consent for a brownfield site first proposed by former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.

But they face tough opposition from anti-Gypsy MP John Baron, and extreme right wing elements who want to see Travellers driven from the district. Some have made death-threats against Dale Farm residents.

Baron himself, leading the campaign against the move to Pitsea, has collected signatures outside a supermarket. He claims 5,000 residents have signed so far.

Initially, Dale Farm Housing Association (DFHA) wants to develop a mobile-home park for people most in need. They include the elderly, permanently ill and children with special educational needs now living at the Crays Hill settlement.

"Crucially, we need time to create this alternative at Pitsea," said Housing Association Secretary Grattan Puxon. "Much depends on the council's decision on 4 December over its eviction policy."

The council's development control committee meet next Tuesday to reconsider its 2005 vote to spend up to five million million euro on evicting a total of l50 unauthorised Gypsy families from the area. A judicial review of this decision is to be heard in the high court on 11 February 2008.

Essex police, backing Tory chief Malcolm Buckley, have pledged to bear the cost of policing the planned Dale Farm "clearance." Notorious Gypsy eviction specialists Constant & Co. have been hired for the demolition work.

Some of the families on the priority list for the Pitsea site are now awaiting the outcome of recent planning appeals. They will hear in January whether the government has agreed to overule Buckley and allow them a further three year temporary stay.

Meanwhile, in a letter to lawyers acting for Dale Farm residents the council has undertaken to look afresh at their welfare needs. It has also promised to consider their rights under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, which covers respect for the home.

In a 90-page submission the appeal draws attention to the lack of alternate accommodation being offered some 80 families on 50 properties at Dale Farm, which could be bulldozed next year if the way is legally cleared for such action.

"We have nowhere to go unless they let us build this mobile-home park at Pitsea," said Richard Sheridan, chair of the DFHA. "It will cost the council nothing - if they can swallow their racial bias."

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