No-one is illegal - not even in Essex!

Martha Ransdell & Ippy

If you live in this part of Essex, the "traveller burden"-- as it has been unceremoniously called -- is a hot topic. With one of the highestdensities of Irish and Gypsy Traveller sites in the country ,some local residents, the local council and MP, and the farright, appear keen to see these communities vanish from theircollective radars.
Of course, it would be a crazy ,liberal, rose-tinted view to ignore the fact that, like with all com -munities, things are not perfect with the travelling community. However, a climate of fear , ignorance and a lack of courage toengage with what is considered a fairly closed community, means thespace for developing positive and mutually acceptable solutions forall parties is narrowed to the point where the only proposal on thetable is to evict Travellers from their homes--and in the case of DaleFarm, to move them onto another site under the A13 at Pitsea. In a community where every member is related by blood ormarriage, this is a devastating prospect, as T ina comments: "W edon't want to go to Pitsea, we're frightened to. If it comes down tono other choice, we'll go, but we'd rather stay where we are, becausewe've been safer here. If we are evicted, it will cut the whole com-munity in half. It will be broken up. It's not good at all."

Evictions, cash and Constant

Under a Freedom of Information Act request made earlier this yearby the local newspaper , Basildon council confirmed that it hadalready spent #360,000 over the past twelve months on T ravellerevictions and related "services." Of this amount, #213,000 was spenton legal costs for the possible evic tion, including planning inquiries,judicial reviews and other hearings.
    According to Grattan, thecouncil no longer cares about the money for this particular eviction."The money isn' t an issue, now . We reckon they spent at least#1,000,000 at W oodfield site in Befordshire around two years ago.We stopped them once, but they came back. But I don' t thinkthey'll ever vote again for that much money, because there's beena lot of local opposition to them spending that much."
    We turn to the issue of who will gain financially from the pro -posed #3m eviction--investiga tion and bailiff firm Constant andCo. The firm has been involved in several high-profile evictions andspecialise in dealing with T ravellers and squatters.
    In May 2006, they posted an item on their website in whichthey stated that "Our [...] unri valled experience in the evictionof Travellers gives us a head start on some competitors who are [...]incapable of dealing with resist ance when it occurs." Nice chaps.
    In July 2005, Constant carried out a partial eviction of the nearbyHovefield site in which they dam aged adjacent property in defianceof a High Court injunction. The company has built a strong repu -tation for carrying out forcible evictions across the country whichhave seen hundreds of yards razed, earth banks built to prevent trav -ellers returning to their land, emergency services denied accessto sites, water being cut off and, in one case last year , a trailerbeing set alight. T ravellers have responded to the threat of evictionsby building defences, locking-on to their trailers, and other formsof predominantly nonviolent resistance.It is believed that Constant has already been paid #30,000 to pro -duce a blueprint for the Dale Farm eviction.

Planning to stay

There are a lot of yards at Dale Farm--an estimated 1,000 peoplelive here --and most of the them are in fact considered "legal", inthat the land is owned by trav ellers and there is planning per -mission for the land to be lived on, which was awarded back inthe 1970s. However , as the com munity grew, it purchased landnext to the original site, cleared it and built more yards. It is theseyards that the local authority refuses to grant planning permis -sion for. Residents are appealing these decisions on 1 August.Tina says: "This used to be a scrap yard. It was just piled uphigh with hundreds of old car bodies. All those were cleared out,and then, this was made into a site. The council just doesn' t like it. There was never mention of agreen belt around here at the time. We cleaned it up. Then, thescrap yard became a green belt."
    According to a May 2006 Com -mission for Racial Equality (CRE) report, approximately 90 percentof the Gypsy and Irish traveller planning permission applicationsare rejected. Normally, 80 percent of applications received each yearare approved. Because of this lack of permission, many Gypsies andTravellers set up their site without receiving permission, or beforethey seek permission. However , the CRE also reports that the majority of Gypsies and Irish Trav-ellers abide by the planning laws. Internal displacementWhen John Prescott was still in office, he proposed an alternativefor Dale Farm to be provided at Pitsea, which is on the other side ofBasildon. But Basildon council is reportedly already saying that theywill in turn refuse this site. It appears as though central govern -ment is trying to ensure that Dale Farm is not evicted unless the newsite is opened up at Pitsea.
    According to Grattan, local MPJohn Baron, has already been down to Pitsea and collected3,000 signatures against the pro posal. This happened about sixmonths ago, when the site was first proposed: "If we can' t gothere, we're out. W e're history. They have stirred up so muchhatred for us."
    Tina adds "I know that otherpeople have gone through the same things we are going through,but they at least have a place to live. They might get called namesand other things, but they have a home to live in. People don' t say, "you're black, you can' t live here,"and they can' t come in with bull dozers, and put them out of theirhomes. It's a kind of racism. But they'll do it to Gypsies and T rav-ellers because they think we don' t know better. But they ran into abit of trouble here. They thought it would be an easy thing here, butthey're seeing that it's not. Pearl adds, "If it does come toeviction, as a last resort, we'll fight back." Community relationsWe sit in the trailer with the women and Grattan and, over acup of coffee, hear more about the legal challenges, life under threatof eviction, relations with the local settled community, and whatsupport they would like to receive from the "outside world"."On 13 November our judicial review will be heard. We are ques-tioning the decision made by Basildon council to spend nearly#3 million on the [Dale Farm] eviction. W e're questioningwhether they went through the due process, whether they had dueconsideration of the family back grounds of everybody , andwhether they considered the human rights issues" says Grattan."They're not considering what impact this eviction may have oncommunity relations."
    Despite the lack of planningpermission, residents at Dale Farm say they have tried to paytheir council taxes. However , their cheques were returned to them.Pearl comments: "They don' t want us to pay. If we pay, it means we'regood to live here. W e were paying all along, and then they sent usback our cheques and won' t take our money anymore. If they'resending you bills, it legitimises you living here. I suppose that' s agood way of saying, `goodbye'."

Fear and ignorance

Besides being discriminated against by Basildon Council, manyTravellers here also feel that local Basildon residents have strongprejudices and, as a result, treat them unfairly. The 2006 Commis -sion for Racial Eq uality report states that the local police are"doing nothing to build better community relations". Among the Special report: Travellers under threatSpecial report: Travellers under threat Page 8 Peace News 2475-6 July-August 2006 Peace News 2475-6 July-August 2006 Page 9 The official visitor On fire safety We've been working on a safety DVD to go out to travellers nationwide to try to prevent the community dying in fires in their trailers. I've received the support of fire services around the country and been asked to give a presentation to the Chief Fire Officers' Association, which means all the fire officers in this country will hear about the travelling community. We'd like to have the film done by the end of September, then have a debate about it. On evictions We need a protocol set up to maintain the safety of everybody involved, and to know what the role of the police would be for an eviction. During one eviction the police told me, "We're totally independent, we're just here to keep the peace." So I turned around and said to them, "Well if you're there only to keep the peace, why don't you keep the peace on the side of the travelling community? How many arrests [of `over-enthusiastic' bailiffs] have you done during an eviction? And he said "none." There's no balance to it. I really don't want any evictions to happen. When I look at the persecution that the communities have suffered over hundreds of years, and when I see people treat the Travellers differently in the community because they have an Irish accent, I say to these people, "This type of behaviour happened in South Africa. It happened in the southern states of America. You're going back hundreds and hundreds of years. What do you expect, Travellers to get up and give them your seat on the bus? In this day and age, you might as well put a sign that says "no blacks," if you're going to do it for Travellers. On the "greenbelt" People think Travellers should be moved off because this is a greenbelt area - and we can't have travellers in the greenbelt area, if they go against planning, then everyone else can go against planning, and the council will lose control. But we've managed to find some pictures of the site when it was a scrap yard, with bits and pieces everywhere. It wasn't a green belt, though it was in the greenbelt zone, but it wasn't a greenbelt. It was all concrete. It's now a brown belt. And a brown belt can be changed. Martin Trevillion works for Essex County Fire and Rescue. At the end of June, two intrepid PN reporters visited Britain's largest travellers site at Dale Farm in Essex. Forty of the yards on the site are under threat of eviction - estimated to cost#3m. Although the residents legally own the land, these forty yards do not have planning permission. We caught up with Grattan Puxon, media officer for the UK Gypsies, Travellers and Roma Forum, who travelled with us to meet Tina, Pearl and other women living in one of the threatened yards. CRE's key findings are several rec -ommendations for local authori ties. The CRE calls for the localauthority to work proactively to promote good community rela -tions, and to help build integrated communities. Local authoritiesshould also actively tackle mutual misunderstandings and stereo -types, according to the report. For Dale Farm T ravellers, theirexperience with parents at the local school has done nothing toreassure them about local preju dice. Younger children from DaleFarm go to the nearby Cray's Hill Primary and chair of the DaleFarm Residents Committee Richard Sheridan is a governor atthe school, but their attendance has, according to T ina, resulted inparents from the local, settled community withdrawing theirchildren: "It happened very quickly. It happened about two or threeyears ago, when this end of the site was occupied [the "illegal"end]. Our children are just the very same as the settled communi-ty's children, but just because we are Travellers, they didn' t wanttheir kids in with our children. It's as simple as that. It's just that peo-ple don't know us; it' s ignorance. The schools they go to are verynice, the teachers are great, and they're very pleased with the chil -dren. People get frightened, because of what the papers printabout us. They have nothing to be frightened of." Local supportPerhaps surprisingly, the women seem certain that relations withthe local settled community have in fact begun to improve: "Whenthey tried to do the Hovefield eviction, two local woman wentdown there and got arrested and were in the police station forseven hours, because they tried to stop them from moving a mobilehome." But the community is keen toengage with other supporters and invite people to sign their peti -tion, join their rallies and provide practical support during evictions (see opposite for details). Deciding that we had better head off on the next leg of ourEssex adventure (to Hovefield and then on to nearby road protest siteCamp Bling), we ask T ina what message she'd like to send to thewider community. She responds: "They just want Gypsies and Trav-ellers to disappear . Just bang, fin ish. But that won' t happen. W e'rein the world too long. It goes back generation, after generation. I want something better for my children than travelling the road,living in poverty and want. Get rid of all this prejudice that peo -ple are carrying for centuries, don't be racist ... just let us liveand let live." The settled resident l Ann Kobayashi I live in Wickford, a small town near Dale Farm. I got to know some of the Travellers as, over the last five or six years, about 150 of them have gradually become part of the local Catholic community. That process hasn't always been easy but it has been interesting as the "settled" parishioners and the Travellers have adapted to sharing a common space for a few hours each week and working through misunderstandings. A rich culture At school in Dublin we learned about the Penal Laws, the Famine, absentee landlords, rack rents and the forcible eviction of tenant farming families who had no alternative but to take to the road. Many years later, through visiting friends at Dale Farm, I became aware of the richness of Traveller culture, but also of the disproportionate health and educational problems faced because of lack of regular access to services due to frequent forcible removals. So since last year I have spoken out against the proposed eviction of Dale Farm families. Protecting human rights Despite seeing evictions on video it was still shocking to witness one in action. On 28 July 2005 I went to the Hovefield site. I stood with another woman, watching a chalet being attached to a towing vehicle, she said "Shall we sit down?" - as members of a Trident Ploughshares affinity group we have often sat down at sites of outstanding human stupidity. So down we went in front of the chalet, clutching the towing cables and holding up a small hand-made sign - "Protect Human Rights". Quickly arrested, we were released five hours later without charge . Taking a stand (or a sit!) What we did was a short-lived, symbolic gesture, but on reading the local press reports even people who don't approve of me or of nonviolent direct action thought the police action wholly disproportionate. I'll continue to stand beside the Traveller community as long as they want me ... and sometimes even sit down! Get more To accompany this feature, PeaceNews online has published additional archive material from the 1960's on the international struggle of Romani, Gypsy and Traveller communities. A regular reporter during this era was none other than Grattan Puxon. Visit http://www.peacenews.info/ specials/travellers Monitoring teams Dale Farm residents invite PN readers to come together to form a human rights monitoring team to help fight the evictions. Initially, the team would be for Dale Farm, Gipsy Hill (Hovefield Drive) and Cranfield. If formed, the group would visit Dale Farm and meet with other monitoring groups, including Jewish, Punjabi and a Peace & Progress Party group. Anti-Nazi demonstration On 2 August 1944 everyone in the Gypsy Camp at Auschwitz was murdered. Join the anti-Nazi commemoration on 1 August. The event also marks the first day of the planning appeals for approximately 70 families at Dale Farm. Meet 11am outside the Basildon Centre, St Martin's Square, Basildon, Essex. Material support Items such as scaffolding, buildingsite fencing, planks and barbed wire can be donated to the site. Contact: dale.farm@ntlworld.com