THE EVICTION of hundreds of Irish Travellers by an English local authority from an Essex encampment will begin on September 19th, with the council insisting last night it has been left with no choice but to act.
However, the setting of a date for the evictions at Dale Farm, outside Basildon, caused serious upset among Travellers yesterday, two of whom are in hospital suffering from heart problems in recent days and one more with an aneurysm.
Expressing regret, the Conservative leader of Basildon Borough Council, Tony Ball, said the local authority had sought “a negotiated settlement and exhausted the legal system for almost 10 years” but the Travellers had “refused to budge leaving us with no alternative”.
Electricity will be cut to the illegal plots at Dale Farm from September 15th unless individual Travellers can demonstrate their health would be endangered by its removal.
Basildon council intends to evict 240 adults and children at 51 Dale Farm pitches, though there appears to be some doubt about whether notices have been properly issued for three of the pitches, including one owned by ailing grandmother Mary Flynn.
The rights of several hundred other Travellers living on 34 older pitches and who have planning permission will not be affected, though settled residents in favour of eviction seemingly believe the evictions will remove all of them.
Furious that news of the eviction notice was leaked to the press, Candy Sheridan of the Gypsy Council said she had been given “cast-iron guarantees” she could break the news to the Travellers.
The council’s willingness to supply electricity for special cases is “a joke”, she said, since so many Travellers living on the illegal pitches – which they own, but for which they do not have planning permission – needed “nebulisers and oxygen masks” every day.
In the House of Commons, Secretary of State Eric Pickles said: “It is right and proper that we should respect the lifestyle of the Travelling Community, but that does not give them a particular right over other citizens.”
