New site for Dale Farm travellers

Residents of the UK's largest illegal travellers' settlement will today put forward their case for an alternative site.

The Dale Farm Residents Association is calling for a mobile-home park to be established at Laindon and for a second site on brownfield land at Gardiners Lane, both near Basildon.

The sites belong to the Homes and Communities Agency, a quango which offered the sites to Basildon Council for travellers' plots.

Today a public inquiry at the authority's Basildon Centre offices will consider the council's decision to refuse planning permission for a dozen permanent plots and 60 temporary pitches to meet the immediate need of travellers.

Campaigner Grattan Puxon said: "More than 50 properties have been destroyed on the Dale Farm estate. Council leader Tony Ball turned around last week and advised homeless travellers to seek residence permits through proper channels. Rising to this challenge, residents will put their case to a public inquiry."

The hearing follows last month's clearance of the six-acre site in Crays Hill following a decade-long row over unauthorised plots. The operation saw violent clashes between police and protesters.

Basildon Council has since completed the site clearance but, despite a legal injunction and physical barriers, at least 10 families have moved back onto a road inside the illegal site.
Many others have settled on the legal half of Dale Farm, exceeding its authorised capacity.