Police use tasers as they break through a barricade during evictions from the Dale Farm travellers camp. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
 http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2011/10/19/1319008048337/Police-taser-007.jpg
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/oct/19/dale-farm-evictions-live?CMP=twt_gu

8.18am: Here's a shot of police using tasers earlier this morning
Still waiting to hear from Essex police on what equipment they're using at Dale Farm

the extended curly wire held by the /);& on the left is what carries electricity to victims body, for those unfamiliar with tasers.

Update from local paper:

"10:13: Protesters urinate on police as they try to remove flammable liquid from behind the barricade"
Sweet :)

"Dale Farm eviction "will weigh heavily on Britain"


I should think it will be forgotten by the time the next episode of X Factor starts

- When the residents bought the site it was a concrete scrapyard. So basically that makes the resident's actions in moving there all those years ago about as environmentally destructive as you moving into a house in the city.

- It was Basildon council which actually concreted over the land in the first place
 http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/dale-farm-concreted-over-by-basildon-council/

- One of the most vociferous campaigners, next door neighbour Len Gridley, has a massive plot of land a smiliar size to Dale Farm to himself. It recently transpired he himself had done building work on his plot without planning permission. Next door hundreds of people live on a patch of concrete. Sorry, lived.

- The surrounding area is made up of large plush gated houses, a very busy motorway, a big Tescos complex, and some fields. This is not exactly pristine wilderness.

- Have you actually been to the area to see for yourself? No? Then shut ur piehole

- When the residents bought the site it was a concrete scrapyard. So basically that makes the resident's actions in moving there all those years ago about as environmentally destructive as you moving into a house in the city.

>> Wrong - about 20% of the site was a concreted scrapyard that had been built illegaly in the first place by other travellers. The rest was woodland and a corn field.

- It was Basildon council which actually concreted over the land in the first place

>> Lie - Dale Farm have been pushing this lie for about eight years, it has been disproved time and time again

- One of the most vociferous campaigners, next door neighbour Len Gridley, has a massive plot of land a smiliar size to Dale Farm to himself. It recently transpired he himself had done building work on his plot without planning permission. Next door hundreds of people live on a patch of concrete. Sorry, lived.

>> Strawman argument. What somebody else does is irrelevant, the Dale Farm residents are illegal, simple as that. If my neighbour breaks the law is it ok for me to do the same ?

- The surrounding area is made up of large plush gated houses, a very busy motorway, a big Tescos complex, and some fields. This is not exactly pristine wilderness.

>>> None of which are on the Green Belt land that the Dale Farm site is. By your argument is it ok to build a Tesco on Green Belt land if there is a Waitrose next door ?

- Have you actually been to the area to see for yourself? No? Then shut ur piehole

>> Yes. I wrote an advisory paper to Basildon council detailing the effect on wildlife in the area of the development.

"The surrounding area is made up of large plush gated houses, a very busy motorway, a big Tescos complex, and some fields. This is not exactly pristine wilderness."

It was a tip to start with, long before the travellers got there. Its basically scrubland that was never properly re-classified after the A127 was built, one of the busiest arterial roads in England, next to the A13 which runs a parralel to it a couple of miles to the south. When that road was built the whole area on that side became unusable. Before the A127 was built, it was beautiful.

Then they built the large commercial park across the other side, this contains a Tesco, a large garage, a retail park with maybe ten or fifteen large scale retail outlets, factories and a large US credit card processor with huge car-park. Behind that is a very run down industrial park covering maybe 75 square acres.

It can't really be classed as green belt land as most of it was being used for agriculture so the land is dead as far as the natural environment is concerned. But the small scrapyard was there for years and that means sump oil, petrol and used car parts all being left to rot on the ground.

Green belt designation is really pushing the boat out.

Fundamentally, what this is about is the council being unable to generate income from the site, or to provide its services under the Council Tax income stream. On top of that, the land cannot be developed for other projects the council would want to build.

Once the travellers have gone, Basildon Council will re-designate it and build houses on it anyway.

Basildon Council have been under constant pressure to make land available for extra housing stock to be built. At one time years ago under Labour, the Council were being asked to make space available for an extra 100,000 private dwellings in and around the district. At the time, this was dismissed as ridiculous but the pressure remained for some sort of housing buffer to be created. The travellers are in the way of the council's plans to execute government housing policy.

This is a Conservative run council, and a Conservative run government.

You wrote - It can't really be classed as green belt land as most of it was being used for agriculture - what do you think green belt land is ?

People keep using this spurious argument that there is development nearby so its ok to develop this land, it's not. That's the point of Green Belt it's a fireroad against further development. Basildon Council has already made clear its plans for the area once the site is cleared, a return to agricultural land and a small alottment development for local residents.

Utter crap, the council have said over and over again they will not be building on Dale Farm. It will be rerturned to farm use. Try doing some research next time.

"People keep using this spurious argument that there is development nearby so its ok to develop this land, it's not. That's the point of Green Belt it's a fireroad against further development. Basildon Council has already made clear its plans for the area once the site is cleared, a return to agricultural land and a small alottment development for local residents."

I have no idea why you would claim that they would build allotments there. Its next to one of the busiest arterial roads in England, access is almost non existant and you could count the residents on that side of the arterial on the fingers of two hands. All of the residents on that side of the arterial have enough land to grow whatever they want. They would have no use for allotments and the other residents in the town itself wouldn't want to drive the twenty minutes it would take them to get there. They would almost have to drive to Wickford, in the next town, in order to get back behind the site in order to get access to it. Thats nothing to say of the fact that in rush hour, the A127 can be a nightmare. It could take you an hour or more just to get across town.

The only other residents who might have use for an allotment site are people who live in Noak Bridge, but they have their own allotments.

I don't think people are saying that just because the area is, in reality, heavily developed already, that that alone is sufficient reason to develop more. In Basildon, the A127 acts as a dividing line between the major developed town to the south, and the non developed area on the north side. The travellers are on the northern side almost butting up against the arterial road itself. On the other side of the road, across four lanes of traffic, the town is very heavily developed as commercial and industrial zones.

But that is as it may be. Government policy is what it is. Local authority policy is what government policy dictates it to be.

The housing stock has to be put somewhere and Basildon District Council will simply make the space available. Whether that be on green belt land or scrubland doesn't really matter much. Policy is policy.

Basildon Council have no intention, whatsoever, in returning the land to its previous state or of developing the land for anything other than new residential developments. This is something that has been ongoing between the council and the government for the past decade. Basildon is constantly pestered by government to make space. Basildon is the major town in the Thames corridor before you hit Southend and it is in serious need of extra housing stock. I think waiting lists for housing in Basildon are currently somewhere around fifteen years on a points system.

"Utter crap, the council have said over and over again they will not be building on Dale Farm. It will be rerturned to farm use. Try doing some research next time."

Oh, if I had a pound for everytime Basildon District Council claimed one thing, only to do the exact opposite later when the fuss died down. I would be able to afford to buy my own house by now.

So are you saying the choice is between a bunch of travellers or new housing for local young people ? Is that really an argument you want to make to the people of Basildon or anywhere else for that matter ?

"So are you saying the choice is between a bunch of travellers or new housing for local young people ? Is that really an argument you want to make to the people of Basildon or anywhere else for that matter ?"

I'm not really in it to argue.

I know what I know. The travellers are being evicted from that land in order to make way for extra housing development which the council will undertake on behalf of government house building policy.

I think the wider argument here is that this policy is being enacted by force, using public order policing which is clearly violent and deeply disturbing. Its very shocking that people on that site were being tasered this morning. Tasers are dangerous weapons that should not be used.

I've been involved in witnessing major citywide rioting throughout the UK, Germany, Mexico and seen public order policing first hand in Belfast. What has happened today is very very disturbing indeed. It could not be any more an over-reaction.

Let me ask you, do you think this is acceptable behaviour for a council that only want to build an allotment? Or perhaps could it be likely that the council have other plans, which they have so far have failed to make clear to you?

The following comment was deleted for unknown reasons at CIF (presumably for insulting racists and bigots?):

I am coming to think the British public are as bad as the police - which perhaps explains how the police can continue to act like Britain is a totalitarian regime, even though there's formal democracy in place.

Today we have police putting elderly women in hospital for peacefully sitting down.

We have police torturing people with tasers, supposedly for resisting police violence (as they have every right to do).

We have people ripped from their homes over petty zoning laws, because local racists hate their way of life.

And we have an outpouring of whining, law-loving bigots screaming that they love their oppressors and that everything they do is right. People who are quite happy to live in a world where we can all be beaten, tortured and shot at will, by any individual who happens to wear a uniform.

OK, I've posted this image taken in 2003 or thereabouts which was taken from a chartered small prop.

This image shows at the bottom the traveller Dale Farm site which has not been extended beyond the perimeter that you see here. The site is pretty much the same now as it was back then, although recent images do appear to show some depopulation. You can also see at the top, large-scale development including a retail park, sports playing field's, and in the top right hand corner, a large industrial park containing factories, businesses and some large international corporations. The rent paid by these businesses and corporations is way and above enough to help find the travellers a place to go. The dividing line between these developments is the A127, a very busy arterial road that runs from London right through to Southend on Sea. It is one of the busiest arterial roads in England.

The land at the top of the image beyond and including the developemts is excusively under private ownership so there are no public spaces or right of way there at all.

This image is one you are unlikely to see printed in the MSM because it shows clearly that the general area is already in a state of advanced development. The images you will see printed and online in the MSM, will only show the traveller site looking in the opposite direction. This is because the traveller site can then be placed with a green countryside background emphasising the 'green belt' angle which the MSM wish to show. This is probably because the MSM doesn't particularly want to burn its bridges with the government, which clearly is fully backing the violent and shocking behaviour we have seen today.

The second image is from the BBC, that bastion of competency and fair mindedness. This image shows a directly overhead view that clearly isn't of any real value. Although it does helpfully allow you to make a judgement about what bit of the site is good, and therefore, what bit is bad.

The third image is taken from Basildon Council's own website and is clearly a litle more helpful, although is still taken from an angle looking away from the bulk of industrial development in the town.

If they are all travelers then why are there so many permenant structures?

Traveling means some sort of ability to move from one place to the next...

Oh and the previous poster rants about the locals being racist against a way of life...er If your talking about a race ie.the roma of central europe who have decendents here then there is a small chance you are right, but as far as I could see when I stuck my nose into the place there was no one of that genus. So are the locals being racist against middle class sociology and media arts students?

TB, thanks very much for posting the photos, up until that point I had assumed the entire area was heavily built up and the whole Green Belt argument was a spurious one but I see now why some people are so commited to having this land returned to Green Belt status to protect the surroundoing countryside from the creeping industrialisation of the area.

Of course I condem the heavy handed police operation but we have to protect our green land.

"TB, thanks very much for posting the photos, up until that point I had assumed the entire area was heavily built up and the whole Green Belt argument was a spurious one but I see now why some people are so commited to having this land returned to Green Belt status to protect the surroundoing countryside from the creeping industrialisation of the area.

Of course I condem the heavy handed police operation but we have to protect our green land."

Good to here you condemn the actions taken by police and Basildon Council in forcibly going onto the site by using offensive weapons under the remit of public order policing. This is a small town where local police and council staff do not possess either the skills or experience to do this competently. Basildon police have gone onto the site and used taser weapons offensively to gain access. This is not only illegal, but highly irresponsible and dangerous. Clearly, local police have been attempting to model this operation on national policing operations and, as a result, have completely failed to uphold the law in cogent form. Taser weapons are a last resort to protect the public safety, and are not to be used routinely and offensively in order to gain access to property on behalf of private sector employees.

Of course the area is clearly already heavily industrialised and this development would have been initialy on green belt land. Much of this industrialisation now means that large-scale business and international corporations operate in the area and are paying substantial rent to the local authority, not to mention council tax. This means the council have large-scale revenue coming into its coffers which supplement its income. This is more than enough to provide funding for things like local schools, public services and set asides for traveller communities.

Tony Ball has again stated that Basildon District Council have 110 sites in and around Basildon set aside for the travelling community but this is clearly very false indeed. Basildon District Council do not operate anywhwere near that number in reality and will not be able to competently prove this on demand.

As far as preservation of green belt land is concerned, Basildon is the largest town in the northern area of the commercial Thames Corridor. It has been growing since its original inception. It will continue to grow and the land you see here in these photos, will continue to develop with extra housing provision. The Council will facilitate this as a result of government policy, not local authority policy. Mr Ball is not in a position to make any coherent statements regarding that. Basildon will make land available for extra housing as and when government need arises.

The land you see here, where the travellers are situated, will certainly be developed in the near future. Firstly because there is a requirement for it, and secondly because the local council do not control government policy and, therefore, are not in a position to resist it.

There is clearly a deliberate policy of misleading the public about the status of green belt land in that area and this deception forms the basis of the public discourse. I'm afraid it just isn't enough to claim that the eviction of the travellers is taking place under the remit of protecting green belt land. Neither the council, nor government will ever act to preserve this belt given Basildon's status, or the current economic environment. The eviction of the travellers has nothing to do with this preservation, and has everything to do with clearing the area of people that Basildon Council cannot wring income from or are occupying land that has been set aside for housing development.

If you are truly concerned with the protection of green belt land in that area, you could hardly do better than protect and stand fast with the travellers. They are the only thing standing in the way of chronic industrial development of that land by Basildon Council acting as proxy for the governments house building program.

TB, could not agree with you more. The pictures you posted here have been excellent in illustrating perfectly why the Green belt must be protected and the comments you made about the creeping industrial development in the Basildon area reinforce the effect of those pictures.

I hope you don't mind but I have posted them on my blog and to a number of websites illustrating why the eviction of Dale Farm was regretfully necessary even though it was done in a violent manner that we should be highly critical off.

I appreciate you having the guts to do this on a site like Indymedia where you can expect to get a lot of grief for telling the truth.

Dear 'TB'

I have today used your pictures to illustrate to my class the importance of the Green Belt and how it relates to the Dale Farm dispute. My children who are of many ethnic backgrounds had been divided in their opinions of the Dale Farm situation but your photos help them understand how town and city developments are contained by green belts and why the Travelers had to leave the site.

It is important for children to understand these big news stories outside of the context of the mainstream media.

Thanks

Jake

I am not happy with these photos being used to prove a viewpoint I do not support so I claim copyright on them and do not give my approval for you or anybody else to use them.

"TB, could not agree with you more. The pictures you posted here have been excellent in illustrating perfectly why the Green belt must be protected and the comments you made about the creeping industrial development in the Basildon area reinforce the effect of those pictures."

Which of course is why it is so important to recognise how government policy of creeping housing development into the green belt requires that pre-existing structures be removed to make way for that development. Which is, in and of itself, a threat to the protection of the Green Belt.

"I have today used your pictures to illustrate to my class the importance of the Green Belt and how it relates to the Dale Farm dispute. My children who are of many ethnic backgrounds had been divided in their opinions of the Dale Farm situation but your photos help them understand how town and city developments are contained by green belts and why the Travelers had to leave the site."

I am sure the children you are teaching will have been shocked to see such violence being undertaken by Essex police and Basildon District Council in service to a violent forced entry of the Dale Farm site, and will no doubt look to you to explain to them why this did not proceed peacefully, despite assurances that a peaceful resolution was the desired result. Perhaps your teaching materials will give your children a coherent understanding about how planning law, along with criminal law, can be successfully merged to further industrial development and building projects.

I would also imagine that, being in a multi-ethnic environment, your children will be very familiar with how ethnic groups can be targeted by other majority groups along lines of race and ethnicity, usually for reasons they are all too familiar with. I do hope they will be able to come away from your classroom with a coherent understanding of what ethnic prejudice means in practise.

It now appears that the travellers have shown their true colours and have left the site, peacefully, and with their dignity stridently intact. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for either Essex Police or Basildon District Council, both of whom are now busy tearing down the traveller homes at very considerable expense to the tax-paying public, at a time of financial hardship for all.

One can only assume that the travellers will be settling on another local site in severe circumstance just as winter arrives, and will now be forced to claim not only benefits, but hardship payments as a result of being forced into homelessness by Basildon District Council, along with other neccessary payments by way of compensation. From here, they will be guided and taught how to seek effective redress, along with how to prepare evidence of the violence they have been subjected to.

One other point, it appears somebody else has taken it upon themselves to restrict usage of the images I have posted above, along with a bizaare complaint about conditions of use. The images are of course in the public domain and are available under the public interest, for reasons of preventing the public from being misled by statements and acts that are, also, comprehensively in the public domain.

>> I am not happy with these photos being used to prove a viewpoint I do not support so I claim copyright on them and do not give my approval for you or anybody else to use them.

What a twat! They arn't yours to copyright dickhead

Who cares anyway. The protestors have all left

"What a twat! They arn't yours to copyright dickhead."

The person called TB who took the image which has been posted here, is NOT the same TB that has attempted to claim copyright over them.

Two different people, the first genuine, the second not.

Just in case there is a copyright claim in the future, and this web page is used as evidence to support it. The claim to copyright is made by the plaintiff themselves, acting as imposter for the purpose of filing a claim.