URGENT ****DALE FARM PETITION****URGENT

[stubbadub]

Council renews battle with Dale Farm travellers

The council that cleared Dale Farm, the UK's largest illegal travellers settlement, is preparing to take fresh action after caravans moved to a neighbouring site.

10:07AM GMT 19 Jan 2012

Basildon Council today confirmed it had begun drafting new enforcement notices to remove travellers from a legal site neighbouring Dale Farm in Essex.

These are expected to be served by the end of January and would give travellers 28 days to vacate the land.

The move could see bailiffs and police take action for a second time, following last year's clearance operation which resulted in violent clashes.

A council spokesman said: "From a legal point of view, we are treating this as a separate case from the Dale Farm clearance so the process has had to begin from scratch."

The council is assessing how many people living on the legal site are not entitled to be there.

Basildon Council completed the clearance of Dale Farm in November after Essex Police removed protesters.

An estimated 80 families were removed from the six-acre site following a decade-long row over the settlement on green belt land.

But within weeks at least 10 families had moved back on to roads inside the site.

Although the illegal part of the site is now clear, at least 50 caravans are thought to be on the neighbouring legal site, exceeding its authorised capacity.

Speaking after the eviction, council leader Tony Ball admitted a second clearance may be necessary.

He said: "We will talk to the travellers and take legal measures but ultimately we may have to resort to further direct action in order to remove them.

"We hope it doesn't come to that, but it is very much a possibility."

Reports locally today suggested the bill for the original clearance came to £4.2 million.

The council said it had not yet calculated the total cost of the original operation as it awaits invoices from contractors.

But a spokesman said the authority was "confident" the cost would come in under the £8 million budget.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9024579/Council-renews-battle-with-Dale-Farm-travellers.html

[Geronimo]

The council, if they move the Travellers off the site, will then take action to move them off the road bit by bit, 3 miles at a time under section 61/62a until they are forced out of Basildon and Essex...as was suggested, this is indeed ethnic cleansing by this council and the country is siting watching it in-between episodes of Soaps.

The council costs ignore the monies paid to have the police act as a private for hire force, 10,000,000, while hiding behind their 'legal' status! So it was only 14,000,000 to date!

[whizzer]

The council, if they move the Travellers off the site, will then take action to move them off the road bit by bit, 3 miles at a time under section 61/62a until they are forced out of Basildon and Essex...as was suggested, this is indeed ethnic cleansing by this council and the country is siting watching it in-between episodes of Soaps.

The council costs ignore the monies paid to have the police act as a private for hire force, 10,000,000, while hiding behind their 'legal' status! So it was only 14,000,000 to date!

I agree 100%, ethnic cleansing is happening and the whole country is just sitting back watching! Thats why I say f*ck this country and its bunch of racist jobsworths!

Pity the travellers didn't just kick the living sh*t outa the bailliffs, of course the travellers would have lost because the bully boys have all the manpower and the firepower but a good few would have gone home with their nuts around their neck!

[Geronimo]

The council, if they move the Travellers off the site, will then take action to move them off the road bit by bit, 3 miles at a time under section 61/62a until they are forced out of Basildon and Essex...as was suggested, this is indeed ethnic cleansing by this council and the country is siting watching it in-between episodes of Soaps.

The council costs ignore the monies paid to have the police act as a private for hire force, 10,000,000, while hiding behind their 'legal' status! So it was only 14,000,000 to date!

I agree 100%, ethnic cleansing is happening and the whole country is just sitting back watching! Thats why I say f*ck this country and its bunch of racist jobsworths!

Pity the travellers didn't just kick the living sh*t outa the bailliffs, of course the travellers would have lost because the bully boys have all the manpower and the firepower but a good few would have gone home with their nuts around their neck!

The bailifs only came on site AFTER the police has secured it using tasers, little iron bars, sledge hammers and their badges of office.If they hadn't used their official position as police and came just as bailiffs they would never have got in. Thats one of the points of the whole matter, the police used their official standing to carry out a private job, a political agenda of the local council for £10,000,000

[whizzer]

it comes as no suprise to me that the police are a privately owned gang that represent their elite masters wishes. Army is the same, there to fight illegal wars and protect the elite from enemies, foreign and domestic.
Unfortunately I feel that Dale farm is only a small part of the larger plan, they have tried many times to eliminate travellers completely! and they aren't about to stop! I have my own horror stories and have witnessed first hand how these evil scum operate, they have no honour.

[Geronimo]

Well who would of thought it of Basildon council. I wonder what they are going to do with the 9 new planning applications? How can they tell a planning inspector they are happy for a dogs kennel and two brick houses to be built on greenbelt land but not allow people to live on an ex-scrap yard!



DALE FARM: INSPECTOR SAYS
COUNCIL IS DISCRIMINATING

Basildon council is discriminating against
Travellers by failing to adopt a policy that
would meet the needs of families like those
made homeless at Dale Farm through recent
evictions.

That's the conclusion of Planning Inspector
James Ellis who this week (1 Feb) quashed
enforcements orders against Patrick Doran, of
Hovefields Avenue, and granted his family a
five year planning consent.

The decision adds hope for a successful
outcome to fresh planning applications at
Dale Farm. These include Mary Flynn's and
a pending 10-yard application covering the
old scrap-yard.

From this ruling, it also looks as though
Basildon may have a hard time with any new
enforcement orders issued in relation to
caravans on Oak Lane.

However, on the same day Miles and Elizabeth
Delaney, who own the yard next to the Dorans
at Gipsy Hill, Wickford, Essex, had their appeal
against a planning refusal by Basildon rejected.

While in the Delaney's case the usual greenbelt
arguments prevailed, the Dorans were deemed
to be in need of a settled home. Even Patrick
Delaney's status as a Traveller was questioned
although he was born in a caravan, and has
travelled widely in Europe and the United States,
where he met his wife.

Although Basildon has now stated that it will
have a Gypsy and Traveller Development plan
in place within three or four years, Ellis noted
it was unlikely on present reckoning any new
pitches would be built before 2017.

Failure to adopt a policy of site provision for
what is a recognized ethnic group could amount
to discrimination, he says in his report.

Ellis says he was guided by Fordham Research
issued in 2009 which projects that by 2013
the need for new pitches within the Basildon
district will amount to 148. Currently there is a
requirment to provide 62 pitches, although that
duty will be eliminated by the Localism Bill.

The council has provided only one pitch
since 2006.

Another aspect of this ruling could impact on
the activities of Basildon council during its
mammoth clearance operation. Greenbelt
protection forbids engineering operations while
requiring resoration to include removal of
material from the site.

"The council have dug huge ditches and piled
up earth banks," says Dale Farm residents'
committee. "Material has not been taken away
and the opennes of the greenbelt badly
impaired."

[whizzer]

Some things never change in this country, namely political corruption and racism.This really turns my stomach.

[Geronimo]

DALE FARM: COUNCIL UP THE POLE
AS TORY LEADER GOES FOR AWARD
By Grattan Puxon
　
It’s hardly a title our opponents will agree with
but we’re calling this the Ethnic-Cleanser of the
Year Award. Tony Ball, Tory leader of Basildon
Council, has been short-listed for it and will be
at Westminster for the presentation.

Officially what will be happening in the Palace
of Westminster at the end of the month is a
ceremony to highlight the achievements of
local councillors and what they do. The awards
are made by the Local Government Information
Unit.

Nominations can come from anyone; members
of the public, councillors and council staff. The
information the LGiU has received about Cllr
Ball is that he’s done an outstanding job in
evicting Travellers from Dale Farm. That's as in
outstandingly brutal and, in our opinion, stupid.

As Ball boasts, with the help of riot police he
succeeded in carrying out the destruction of half
the Dale Farm estate on the cheap. Out of a
government-boosted budged of £18 million, a mere
third of that total was spent.

The council has abandoned nearly ninety families
to living on the roadside close to their ruined
properties or lodged temporarily with relatives on
the legal part of the estate. Few as yet have found
refuge in other counties.

It has left behind a trail of destruction that is not
only an eye-sore on the landscape but an offence
to the very law Ball claimed to be upholding. Where
once stood homes are gaping pits now filling with foul
water and melting snow, each surrounded by
debris-clogged earth banks.
　
However, before going to collect his award for the
rape of the green-belt, Ball finds himself up the pole.
Dale Farm’s long-suffering residents are on the point
of taking further legal action. One issue they have
concerns the erection of a row of electricity poles.
Clearly they effect the openness of the green-belt
and must add to the environmental damage already
so apparent.

“They have dug a hole right in the gateway of my
property,” complains one yard owner. “We’re putting in
fresh planning applications and intend to move back.”

For three months, residents have been demanding the
restoration of the illegally cut electricity supply. Having
lost patience lawyers are this week threatening to seek
the intervention of the courts for the failure of the
council to act expeditiously in repairing the damage to
the infrastructure.

Dale Farm Residents Association is asking the newly
formed Traveller Solidarity Network and other groups
to support a protest at Westminster on 27 February
when Tony Ball hopes to receive his council leader
of the year award.

Is this the equivalent to presenting the Iron Cross? Doesn't this take the biscuit? Isn't this just what this country is all about, awarding those who carry out terrible actions that decent and reasonable people find abhorrent!

For those who couldn't make Dale farm now's your chance to unite with people under the cosh! Come show, in a peaceful way, your distain for Mr Ball and any system that awards such actions as if they are good! Pm me if you are going to attend and ill meet you there. Ill be the one with the indian chiefs headdress!

In the meantime email your opposition to a man who caused the on going hardship for 400 people mainly because of their culture and for his own political expediency.

You can contact Mr Ball here, he states, through his teeth, he has never had even one complaint about dale farm or his own hand in the brutal eviction. But please be polite. It confuses him. tony.ball@members.basildon.gov.uk

Ill endeavour to provide the email address of the team that makes the award decisions, again politeness is the key. Let's try stop this despicable character from getting awarded for his inhuman actions against sick women and children and in one case a terminally ill man.

[Geronimo]

Basildon Council made some significant errors in the information used when they rejected the planning application of Mrs. Mary Flynn (plot 45 Dale Farm) and the appeal has now been passed to the Secretary of State for inquiry. This is a real opportunity to begin to re-instate Dale Farm as a residential site. If the appeal is successful it will make other appeals more likely to succeed.

One of the things that is taken into account at inquiry is the strength of public feeling for and against. We have been working very hard to help residents write letters, we need more letters from supporters and friendly organisations. This is now urgent; we have not yet had a date confirmed but it could be as early as next week. Please take a few minutes to write and to pass this call-out to your network.

Extra weight is given to responses from people who live locally and from statutory parties - and if you were staying at Dale Farm between August and September 2011 you count as a statutory party and should say so in your letter.

I have appended some notes to help you but please adapt and add points relevant to you. The main arguments in support are that the planning committee decision was not fully informed, that this land was never in a state compatible with green belt and therefore cannot be returned to that state, that the bunds placed on site since the eviction make the land even less compatible with green belt than it would have been but that the perimeter bunds now hide any residential use so minimise the visual impact of residence. Highway safety has not been and cannot be demonstrated to be an issue. There are many special circumstances which should be taken into account including the failure of the council to provide alternative sites and the human rights of residents, particularly children.

This could make a real difference - please take a few minutes to write in support. Send your letter by email to:
appeals@basildon.gov.uk, planning@basildon.gov.uk, tony.ball@members.basildon.gov.uk, enquiries@pins.gsi.gov.uk

To help out here is a template letter. Every letter will count as Inspectors do actually count the letters for and against.



<please delete all notes that appear in angled brackets like this>

Dear Sir / Madam

Plot 45, Dale Farm
APP/V1505/A/11/2163607 Dale Farm

The retention of a change in use of the land to a residential Gypsy / Traveller caravan site including the retention of hard standings, fences, and the siting of a portable structure on the land to be used as a utility facility.

I wish to support the appeal of the Dale Farm Residents Association in relation to the above.

I am < personal circumstances stuff... include full name and address >

I am a statutory party.. < if you were staying at Dale Farm between August and September 2011 then you can claim this status (say why) otherwise delete>

<The substance of your letter of support. Some facts and arguments you may wish to include follow. Reword, delete or add as you prefer.>

<Background information:>

The application was submitted in August 2011, and was considered by The Development Control and Traffic Management Committee on 18th October 2011. A decision notice was issued on 19th October 2011.

<Points relating to the decision of the committee not being fully informed:>

The Committee made its decision without being made aware that Basildon Borough Council had admitted to seeking to over-enforce enforcement notices issued against Dale Farm and that costs had been awarded against the Council on 03 October 2011.

The Committee was also not made aware that officers intended to further seek to over-enforce enforcement notices purportedly issued by Basildon Borough Council or that some of the notices had been issued without authority.

The Committee was not made aware that officers of Basildon Borough Council intended to bund large areas of land to store hardcore, road scalpings and debris from hard standing and by acting in this way engage in acts of development requiring planning permission, despite the Council having already identified that it was taking action against these works.

<Points relating to Basildon Council using planning regulations inappropriately:>

The Council's enforcement notices required removal of hardcore, road scalpings and debris from hard standing to ensure that the alleged openness and character of the Green Belt was maintained. Yet the Council had no intention of maintaining the openness of the Green Belt, and took direct action on non-planning grounds. The Council has identified that it has no issues with use of the land for storage and deposit of hardcore, road scalpings and debris from hardstanding which is incompatible with the stated aim to protect the character of the Green Belt. At its full council meeting on 14 March 2011 it was reported that the Council had no plan to secure the remove this debris from the land. The Council identified on about 19 December 2011 that: "Subcontractors will excavate any remaining hardstandings and roadways etc. and will use the material to form a wide flat topped bund around the site, by doing so there will be no requirement to bring extra material to site. It will then be top dressed with soil taken from site so as to give it an acceptable appearance. The shape of the bund will assist with water drainage and reduce the chances of the formation of a reservoir from standing water."

Basildon Borough Council further acted unreasonably on 19th October in engaging in a direct action based on s178 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 informed by assurances provided by its staff that it intended to correct a breach of planning control when this was not the case. It is my belief that Basildon Council did not take enforcement action against Dale Farm on planning grounds which is evidenced by the creation of bunds from materials stored and deposited on site and that the only real issue that the Council was taking enforcement action against was use of the land residentially by caravans. Basildon Borough Council at the same time failed to identify alternative sites for Gypsy's and Travellers.

It is also clear that Basildon Council has allowed development on its greenbelt land in other cases and that this option could and should have been taken in the case of the Dale Farm application. On 29th November 2011 the Development Control & Traffic Management Committee granted conditional planning permission to 11/00433/Full for a Dog Rehoming Centre with associated hardstanding and 2 staff houses to be developed on 13 acres of Green Belt land in Wickford.

<Special circumstances which should be taken into account to support the Dale Farm appeal:>

The perimeter bunds now hide any potential and existing caravan use from sight. There remains a need for about 150 pitches for Gypsies and Travellers in Basildon. Development of Dale Farm as a Gypsy / Traveller site shall minimise highway safety issues. The nearest neighbour of Dale Farm as well as other local residents have identified publicly that they would rather have the travellers back as neighbours than the devastation left in place by Basildon Council allegedly seeking to act as a planning authority.

Basildon Council was fully aware that it had failed to identify land in the Borough that could be used as a Gypsy/ Traveller site and had rejected guidance by the Secretary of State. The Council has identified in December 2011 that it aspires to adopt a Gypsy and Traveller site Development Plan Document by winter 2014. This is an unacceptable delay due to the level of need in the District.

If Plot 45 should be authorised for use by Gypsy / Travellers there is no good reason why Dale Farm should not be developed as at least a temporary site to enable people to cease being homeless and have access to facilities while awaiting the long term solution promised by Basildon Council after winter 2014. Basildon Borough Council has repeatedly failed to engage with the needs of this recognised ethnic minority group and has continued to offer only culturally inappropriate accommodation as a solution to the problem of homelessness.

The concept of ?cultural aversion to conventional housing? first appeared in a planning case, Clarke v Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (in 2003.) The High Court (in a judgement later upheld by the Court of Appeal) overturned the decision of a Planning Inspector who had refused planning permission to Mr Clarke, a Romani Gypsy, in circumstances where the Inspector had taken into account a previous offer from the local authority of conventional housing Burton J concluded that, if a cultural aversion to conventional housing was established, such an offer would be unsuitable ?just as would be the offer of a rat-infested barn?.

The Council was further aware that any direct action that it took would be against vulnerable people who had admittedly breached planning law to establish a Gypsy / Traveller settlement without planning permission. These breaches occurred due to a lack of land that could be used to establish homes for Gypsy/ Travellers in Essex / Hertfordshire and followed forced evictions from other sites neighbouring Basildon.

Gypsies and Travellers are believed to experience the worst health and education status of any disadvantaged group in England. The lack of sites restricts access to many health, education and welfare services. This not only affects their general well-being, but means that many Gypsies and Travellers are not sufficiently integrated into settled communities, helping to further reinforce stereotypical views that these groups ?don?t fit in?. The life expectancy of a traveller is 12 years less than a person from the settled community. Child mortality rates are almost three times higher amongst the travelling community.

There were 150 children on site at Dale Farm at the time of the clearance. The child residents of Dale Farm have suffered disproportionately, the children are not responsible for breaching planning law and the clearance was traumatic for them. Some see the school as their place of refuge and so the right to an education and healthcare is doubly important to them. Many still suffer nightmares and demonstrate grief reactions to the loss of family members forced to move away, the breakdown of their extended community and the destruction of their familiar environment. Many of the children were born in Basildon and for them, Dale Farm has always been home. The best interest of the child is, if not a paramount consideration, certainly primary and should be given weight in consideration of this appeal.

Second Principle of the UN declaration on the rights of the child 1959

'the child shall enjoy special protection, and shall be given opportunities and facilities by law and by other means, to enable him to develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually and socially in a healthy and normal manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity. In the enactment of laws for this purpose, the best interests of the child shall be the paramount consideration.

Article 24 of the European Union's charter of Fundamental Rights

1. Children shall have the right to such protection and care as is necessary for their well-being. They may express their views freely. Such views shall be taken into consideration on matters which concern them in accordance with their age and maturity.

2. IN ALL ACTIONS RELATING TO CHILDREN, WHETHER BY PUBLIC AUTHORITIES OR PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS, THE CHILD'S BEST INTERESTS MUST BE A PRIMARY CONSIDERATION.

I authorise Grattan Puxon, Secretary of Dale Farm Resident's Association, to represent my interests at the inquiry.

Yours faithfully,

<name>
<date>

[Geronimo]

Is there no depth of disgust of Basildon Council can evoke in decent minded people?

While they were spending millions upon millions of taxpayers money to move people off disputed Green Belt land, after they had been there 10 years, they, the council, were at the same time listing green belt land in the same areas to...wait for it...build on!

http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/9530000 ... near_you_/

Yet the leader of this council is up for "head leader of the year award"

I hope to be able to put up the email address of the people dealing with the recommendations for the award and hope every one will send in a message denouncing this council and this leader.