Travellers at Dale farm, Essex, vow to fight on as eviction countdown begins | Society | The Guardian

Travellers at Dale farm, Essex, vow to fight on as eviction countdown begins

Three pitches spared as Basildon council goes ahead with biggest eviction of traveller families in British history

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• Josh Layton
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 3 August 2011 18.28 BST
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Dale Farm Travellers' site, Crays Hill, Essex. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

Traveller families at Dale farm have reaffirmed their intention to stay put at the start of a 28-day eviction period as it emerged that several homes will be spared from the mass removal.

The enforcement action will cost the local council in Crays Hill, Billericay, Essex, up to £8m. Eviction notices were issued in July but the 28-day countdown begins on Thursday.

The Travellers' spokesman, Grattan Puxon, said three of the 54 plots would be saved but claimed there were few options left for families still residing illegally on the former scrapyard after plans to carry out the biggest eviction in British history were waved through at a meeting of Basildon council on Tuesday night.

"People are generally very desperate because this is a terrible threat which has been hanging over them for a number of years," said Puxon. "Several of the residents are simply not well enough to go out on the road; it's like a death sentence for them. People are certainly not leaving, though – they are determined to fight it out."

He said the main focus of resistance would be to use a team of international observers to monitor bailiffs and to oppose any attempt by them to go beyond the terms of the enforcement notices.

Three families in at least eight caravans would be spared eviction, he said, though the council still has the right to remove the hardstandings underneath their homes. The stands were the only part of the trailers served with the original enforcement notices in 2004 – before a string of legal appeals – because the occupants were away at the time.

Dawn French, Basildon council's head of corporate services, said: "The council confirms that there are three pitches where it has no authority to remove caravans from the land. It does, however, have authority to remove the hardstanding from beneath the caravans and the private roadways from which the pitches are accessed.

Basildon council leader Tony Ball said the three plots had already been included in plans for the site's clearance. "The council has a statutory homelessness duty and has been very proactive in seeking applications from as many families as possible and has been processing those accordingly," he said.

"Further applications are likely following the service of the 28-day notice and once the site clearance commences. There is no need for the elderly, the vulnerable or the young to live on the roadside, as has been suggested."

via guardian.co.uk