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    Dale Farm Eviction 'Has Created Health Hazard'

    The eviction of Dale Farm last year has resulted in travellers squeezing onto an adjacent site and living in squalor.

    The neighbouring site has become a "health hazard" because of overcrowding, Basildon Council has said.

    Half the pitches at the Oak Lane site now exceed the number of units stated in their planning regulations.

    The road leading up to Dale Farm is also filled with illegally parked caravans. 

    At the last count, there were 16 crowding a lane. 

    Some came from the original illegal settlement but, the council says, there are also "new faces" on the scene.

    "Our concern about this overcrowding is two-fold," council leader Tony Ball said.

    "It is in breach of planning conditions but, more worryingly, it is dangerous for all concerned. 

    "The overcrowded conditions which the travellers have created are both becoming increasingly insanitary and are a clear and present fire risk.

    "Again we have made these concerns clear to the travellers and urged them to move away. They have refused to co-operate."

    Mary-Anne Sheridan, a former Dale Farm resident now living on the road leading to the old site said: "We're living in misery with no proper water, toilets or electric. But we've nowhere else to go." 

    The council also revealed that provisional costs for the operation to clear Dale Farm have come in under budget.

    The budget for both the police and council was estimated at £18m but the total cost to the council has now been calculated at approximately £4.8m.

    This included an additional £1.6m which the council had to spend between September and October in legal costs at the High Court defending against last-minute injunctions and judicial reviews.

    The police costs have been calculated at £2.4m compared with the £10m that was originally budgeted in the event of a worst-case scenario.

    Leader of the Council Tony Ball says he is pleased the costs were kept down but he is "... annoyed that £1.6m was added to our final bill by the delay and legal costs incurred between September and October when the travellers launched their last-minute legal challenge against the Council's right to clear Dale Farm".

    He added: "The ongoing saga around Dale Farm continues to sadden and annoy me in equal measure. In the long term it serves nobody's ends. This is a difficult challenge for any council but we are duty bound to see the law is upheld and that is what we will continue to do, for however long it takes."

    Since the travellers left Dale Farm in late October, the council has removed all fixed structures and dug up the roads, pavements and pitches.

     

    33 comments

    • THOMAS  •  Edinburgh, Scotland  •  3 months ago
      Nice story in the local news paper about a 21 year old father of 5 traveller doing the decent thing and turning himslef in after he returned from scuttling back to Eire where his mug shots were circulated for his part in a distraction burglary on a 90 year old woman.

      I feel enriched by his cultural need to use a hedge as a toilet.
      • GOPHAR CORFE 3 months ago
        nice,,, even bears only #$%$ in the woods
    • Laura  •  3 months ago
      I despise travellers for preying on the settled community, for creating mountains of waste...and then moving on, leaving us to clean up after them.
      I also despise our government for not standing up to them and making them do what their name suggests..travel!
      Some years ago, i worked for a company which would often be contracted to clean up sites where 'travellers' had been evicted. They would always disappear the night before eviction day to avoid confrontation with bailiffs, but they always left behind 'reminders' that travellers hold the rest of us in utter contempt.
      They would often come back, once the clean up had taken place and so the whole process would start over again. It was at this time that I developed my enduring hatred for these freeloaders...we simply can't allow them to abuse us any longer.
      • Lucy 3 months ago
        You just made that up!
      • Fred the Ted 3 months ago
        No Lucy, our local authority pay a fortune to clean up after they wreck the local cricket field. And just for you Lucy: we play cricket with very friendly and sporting Pakistani folk. Its just the Pikeys that behave like racists.
      • Bill 3 months ago
        I have had dealings with travellers over the years.Men, women and children.
        They are an absolute nightmare. If I could have got away with it I would have liked to
        shoot them.
    • MBA  •  London, England  •  3 months ago
      How do you become a pikey, is there a badge or something. Perhaps then we could park slightly over a line in council carparks without a fine or not even pay for a parking ticket. Because logically as they let pikeys do what they like it would be nice to do the same after paying so much tax, and council tax, car tax without punishment.
      • wayne 3 months ago
        Being an Irish thief probably helps gain admitance.
    • julie j  •  London, England  •  3 months ago
      easy way to stop all this pass a bylaw that any touring caravan must have a permit to be on the road only one permit per council tax paying household and any caravan illegally parked will be towed away without warning and the permit revoked for that household for 5 years
      • wayne 3 months ago
        bloody good idea!
      • beaubum1 3 months ago
        As always Julie, the best solutions come from "normal" members of the public...what a shame those in Westminster (and the courts come to that), just will not listen to us
      • Wake up England! 3 months ago
        Good idea - but the flaw is that these so-called 'travellers' simply IGNORE the laws of our country anyway...
    • Big A  •  London, England  •  3 months ago
      On Benefit with no permanent Home is Illegal.Claiming while appearing in Reality shows is illegal if you dont declare it .If you have 2 Homes you cannot claim Benefit its Illegal.Selling Scrap freshly stolen is illegal need i say more. Deport them and if the do gooding bleaters start there usual chorus Deprt them as well and sod there Human rights what about the rest of us having the human right to do this.
      • Roger 3 months ago
        Being illegal is a way of life to them, how about the lottery winners who are resident here, on benefits, with a big house in Ireland. Your comment about scrap, cash deals for scrap metal is now illegal, but I suppose that doesnt apply to them either. I think the great British public deserve better than this, make the Irish Republic a foreign country and dont let them in without a visa. Something neds to be done because we cant afford to keep them anymore, send them back to support their own country. We are supporting them here and sending aid to their country. Enough is enough.
    • Pistolshooter  •  Edinburgh, Scotland  •  3 months ago
      Perhaps "travellers" should be compelled to do just that? Keep travelling. Only 24 hours sleepover at any one area. Its a lifestyle choice!
    • probablygraham  •  3 months ago
      No - the eviction hasn't created a helath hazard - the people who have chosen to live by sponging off all of us have created a health hazard.
    • ronb9191  •  3 months ago
      Bull doze all pikey sites and deport the free loading theiving #$%$ back to ireland.No more gypsey councils, no more benifits, no more green feild sites sold to them so they can infest the country side.Scrap the yuman rites act and dont let any solicitors defend the parasites. God save the country and bollocks to the monarchy and the traiters in goverment.
    • pebbles  •  3 months ago
      if anyone else parked their vehicles illegally they'd be towed away so why are these people still there, does the council really have another £7m to waste on court costs. Why anyone expects the council to provide sites for them is beyond me. there are plenty of caravan sites throughout this country only difference is they'd have to pay and it would seem they want everything for nothing, where's their self respect its time they took responsibility for themselves instead of expecting everything being given to them
    • THOMAS  •  Edinburgh, Scotland  •  3 months ago
      They have big houses back in Ireland, but the nicking isn't so good over there.
    • wayne  •  Port Talbot, Wales  •  3 months ago
      So the travelers are living in squalor? Tell us something we didn't know, every site I ever saw was a stinking mess after they left.

      Pity they don't actually travel a bit more, preferable back to Ireland.
    • robin y  •  Manila, Philippines  •  3 months ago
      the time has come to only allow immigrants who offer something of value ie a skill or a required qualification entry into the UK.If this was applied then these travellers would not be allowed entry.
    • Wake up England!  •  London, England  •  3 months ago
      Health hazard? These people always live in filth, they should be used to it. And as for having no toilets - they usually **** in the bushes anyway.
    • GAZZA.T.TOMPKINSON  •  Bradford, England  •  3 months ago
      I think these travelling people,should travel back to ireland,we do not want them here..
    • Lecutas of Borg  •  Grimsby, England  •  3 months ago
      These travellers are squalor itself !
    • john f  •  Sheffield, England  •  3 months ago
      They are a dangerous health hazard the country needs to be rid of them,they are a plague.
    • dipstick  •  Milton Keynes, England  •  3 months ago
      They should have been deported not evicted
    • No More Faith  •  3 months ago
      They cant go back to Ireland travelers are ilegal in Ireland. Just like in Ireland only 3 kids on benefit after that your on your own. Why do you think they are here in the first place. Freebies of course. Anf free lawers to keep them here.
    • Bill  •  3 months ago
      They are devious bleeders these travellers. We will probably be abusing their human rights or
      some other nonsense. This is what you get by being weak with these people.
    • boonierat  •  3 months ago
      Societies criminal illiterate soap dodging ponces are using the passive aggressive approach at breaking the law to suit themselves.Maybe it is time to show some tough justice and deport them as I sure as hell don't want the taxes I pay to support these tinkers