Has The Council Botched Dale Farm Eviction?

Millions of pounds could have been saved if Basildon Council had used an alternative strategy to evict travellers from Dale Farm, a planning expert has told Sky News.

As a row grows over how officials handled the attempted eviction, Matthew Green, a planning consultant for Green Planning, said the estimated £18m cost to the council for evicting the travellers could have been avoided.

"The council have made a mistake in taking direct action because it's a more costly, more risky route and it will take more time," he said.

"If they had gone down the route of seeking an injunction, the people would have been off the site four or five years ago and it would have been at a fraction of the cost and risk to public life."

Basildon Council had threatened to clear structures at the site on Monday but the travellers were given a reprieve with a last-minute injunction, allowing them to remain at least until Friday when both sides will appear before a High Court judge.

One local campaigner against the travellers feels the battle is now lost.

"I think now they will win the right to stay," said village resident Len Gridley. "The council have mismanaged the whole thing. I saw three mistakes in their eviction notice and I'm not even a lawyer."

Councils have been known to take out injunctions against illegal sites. These have been successful in many cases because travellers are threatened with imprisonment if they breach a judge's order to leave their pitches.

But the leader of Basildon Council, Tony Ball, said: "The council must explore all available options and the injunction was one of those options.

"But what's been clear over history is that no one knows who to serve the injunctions on. Therefore the prospects of that being successful were very small.

"My understanding is that you serve it on the owners of the land and trying to find that was very difficult."

In 10 years, Basildon Council has never sought an injunction against the residents of Dale Farm, instead they have chosen to take direct action to enforce eviction notices.

But after Monday's ruling there are still questions over what bailiffs are legally entitled to remove.

Dale Farm representative Grattan Puxon said: "There are plots where according to the Eviction Notice the caravan on the site is illegal but if they want to remove the other more solid structures that's not legally enforceable."

"There's not much point them coming on here, spending £18m and only removing some of it."