Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

'Ethnic cleansing' in Essex

By Grattan Puxon. Additional reporting: Rob Ray and Robert Allen | 08.05.2006 22:11 | Anti-racism | Repression | Social Struggles

Travellers in Essex, who claim they are living in fear of an apartheid-style dawn eviction, say they will defend their homes using non-violent resistance and human shields if the local council uses a court decision due on May 13th to justify a direct-action attack.

Dale Farm, near Basildon, is the largest travellers' community in Britain, the home of approximately 600 residents living in 86 homes. Virtually a village, with chalets, mobile-homes and brick-walled gardens, Dale Farm's residents have erected barbed-wire, scaffolding and multiple steel gates because they say they expect to wake up any day now to find themselves under siege.

Cliff Codona, chair of Britain's recently established Gypsy Forum, argues that Basildon District Council is ready to enforce the £3million eviction it voted for last year. "Basildon will do what ever they need to do when they want to," he says, unconvinced that recent moves by the government and decisions by the courts will stop the Tory-led council.

He says his own experience, when he was evicted from Woodside in Bedfordshire, leaves him sceptical but determined. "We'll keep this up for as long as it takes, we've no other choice."
"This is ethnic-cleansing," Dale Farm spokesman Richard Sheridan said, after Basildon's development committee decided in January by four votes to one, with one abstention, to bulldoze the homes of 1,000 travellers living within their jurisdiction. "They want to get rid of us at all costs."

Despite a High Court ruling earlier this month that Basildon had acted unlawfully by bulldozing homes at Hovefields Avenue, a traveller colony not far from Dale Farm, Sheridan and Codona fear that in the long run Dale Farm residents will also lose their present homes.

Traveller groups insist that Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott is determined to persuade families to abandon Dale Farm and move to Government-provided land at Pitsea on the other side of Basildon.

Sheridan welcomes Prescott's proposal, but points out that millions in public money could be saved simply by leaving Dale Farm families where they are.
"I think the government needs to take a reality check," says Sheridan. "If Basildon evicts us they'll have the police drive the lot us into the next county before the proposed Pitsea site is even agreed on."

Justice Ouseley's ruling on Hovefields has not deterred the council. Malcolm Buckley, the leader of the council, believes he has the law on his side as well as the support of the council. Cllr Don Morris, who chairs the Housing and Community Safety Scrutiny Committee, says the council will act to the letter of the law. "We will take whatever action is necessary to deal with the legal developments."

Although Justice Ouseley said the council had failed to take into account the possibility that property owners could be successful in obtaining planning permission on appeal, Morris backs Buckley in his assertion that court actions and appeals by the travellers will have no effect on council policy.

"I can’t see the court order having any effect," says Morris. "Our policy is to uphold the law without fear or favour. The fact is that they have come there and done what they have done without planning permission. They have to understand that what they have done is not legal. You simply can’t go on land and build willy-nilly.

"All we are concerned about is that the law must be enforced. If we don't enforce on this we might as well just sack the planning department."
But Codona says Basildon and other councils are in the process of ethnic cleansing using a smoke-screen of planning regulations, in which councils have over-ridden human rights issues.
"We agreed in Strasbourg to stop such evictions," he says. "The Council of Europe endorsed our blueprint for reform and now we want the UK Government to accept these recommendations."

By Grattan Puxon. Additional reporting: Rob Ray and Robert Allen
- e-mail: copy@freedompress.org.uk
- Homepage: http://www.freedompress.org.uk

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech