Crays Hill, Essex, UK, February 1, 2008: We enter Dale Farm under a gate of barbed wire, past a large banner which reads “Save Dale Farm.” Empty gas cylinders lie around. Kids amble. Women collect washing, and move between caravans and chalets.

This is the place that was described as “the most infamous unauthorized Traveller site in the country” by an eminent independent task force on Gypsy and Traveller sites that submitted its report to the British Government last December.

The task force estimated that there are between 180,000 and 300,000 Travellers and Gypsies in the UK. (The huge spread is instructive: it shows how little effort has gone into actually counting, even though Travellers and Gypsies are recognized as national minorities).

Most live in bricks and mortar. At the end of 2007, about 16,000 families were thought to live in caravans, and 75% of these were on authorized sites. The remaining 25% were either passing through or had been denied planning permission to build on their own land, which is the case with the “unauthorized” plots at Dale Farm.

These illegal caravan sites might generate angry headlines, but throughout Britain, they could be fitted into less than one square mile of land, according to the task force. The same is true of Basildon. The council is going after Dale Farm like an avenging angel, but there are only 112 illegal “pitches” (as the Traveller plots are called) in the Basildon area. 52 of them are at Dale Farm.

The task force concluded that the problem is “relatively small” and asked plaintively why it has been so hard to find a solution.

Could it be that the Traveller “problem” has been blown out of all proportion, nationally and here at Dale Farm?