Dale Farm

SimonAH

IMHO an opportunity here was missed to resolve.

18M to evict them? Hardly a return on investment.

So....how about simply treating them as the council does you or I? Assuming that the land is owned (OK, big assumption) why not;

a) Grant retrospective planning permission BUT insist that all buildings and services are fully up to code and ensure that they are either demolished or put to code at the owners expense and within a designated (reasonable) time frame?

This then takes away the eviction issues and the subsequent problems of re-housing or re-siting and ensures that the buildings are sanitary, safe and legal.

OK, it doesn't help the few neighbours to the site who are complaining - but FFS if the site was forcibly re-sited to some windswept isolated moor with no neighbours then I'm sure there would be a problem with the lesser spotted newt or something.

Someone will not be happy, but why not at least minimise those numbers and minimise the cost?

notsoblue

Is it fair to suggest that one of the things that defines this group is the lack of adherence to the law of the land and societal norms?

bails87

SimonAH
You'd think something like that would be sensible. I'm sure both sides had their reasons for not wanting it though.

Pross

It would have cost Basildon Council LESS money to help the Travellers find a suitable site than the 18million to evict them. That money could have gone to schools, NHS or any other public service.

Undoubtably (County Council money would not have gone to the NHS though) but why should the Council need to spend that money at all? Why are the travelling community a special case? Had they removed the offending structures when enforcement action was first taken then the costs would have been minimal. Even if they had accepted the most recent court decision then the cost would have been lower. The Council have offered to help them find other permanent legal camps and I believe Essex has more legal traveller sites than any other authority.

If I had a site with excess land and decided to put up a load of unauthorised buildings on it would you be arguing that rather than the Council spend money on taking enforcement action they should just give me a load of cash to find a better place to build?

iPete

Letting them stay and have the land, keep the buildings etc. would set a dangerous precedent, would it not?

bails87

iPete wrote:

Letting them stay and have the land, keep the buildings etc. would set a dangerous precedent, would it not?

1. They own the land
2. Retrospective planning permission is granted all the time. I don't think there's any precedent.

suzyb

Rick Chasey wrote:

suzyb wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

*rolls eyes* Did someone just make the travellers not travelling comment?

*rolls eyes* Did someone not get my sarcasm.

No....

This forum needs a proper tongue in cheek smilie

can be misintrepeted and :P just doesn't look right.

mickbrown

Retrospective planning permission is granted all the time?

Maybe so, but a garage or loft conversion doesn't equate to what is in effect a small housing estate on green belt land.

SimonAH

bails87 wrote:

SimonAH
You'd think something like that would be sensible. I'm sure both sides had their reasons for not wanting it though.

Of course! I'm fairly certain that at least a few of the disgruntled neighbours have the ear of the council. Politically it is also very easy to whip up a frenzy about people you neither understand, nor like, nor are willing to integrate with you. This is what happens when you make big decisions like this at a very local and easily influenced level.

I doubt that the travellers are likely to vote in council elections a lot? Col. Blimp (rtd) and Mrs Worthy are simply trying to hang on to their chains of office and damn the wider practicalities.

You can't blame them, but it doesn't usually make sense if you take a helicopter view of these things.

Pross

bails87 wrote:

iPete wrote:

Letting them stay and have the land, keep the buildings etc. would set a dangerous precedent, would it not?

1. They own the land
2. Retrospective planning permission is granted all the time. I don't think there's any precedent.

Retrospective planning is only granted if the application meets with the relevant policies. Have the travellers made a retrospective application if not, why not? If so and it was turned down then they would surely have gone to a planning appeal (assuming they disagreed with the reasons) and if it was incorrectly turned down then the Inspector would overturn the refusal.

bails87

mickbrown wrote:

Retrospective planning permission is granted all the time?

Maybe so, but a garage or loft conversion doesn't equate to what is in effect a small housing estate on green belt land.

green belt land= on the former site of a scrapyard.

But even so, I don't know if that means that anyone could build anything anywhere and not be stopped, but then IANAL.

But here's precedent if you want it: http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cg ... 04/33.html

BigJimmyB

bails87 wrote:

iPete wrote:

Perhaps my image and first hand experience with travelers is vastly wrong, a result of the media?

It seems to me that they are a horribly sexist society, with little equality that refuses to integrate but I've no doubt that, among the ranks, there are some lovely people. Having worked at a gypsy wedding, I can confirm in the nicest possible way that the group at this particular event, lacked manners.

That may be, but has naff all relevance to an eviction.....unfortunately for people with arrsey neighbours

And none of the words in bold apply to any other section of UK society?

In fact, no. They apply to individual people, regardless of sex/race/creed/ethinicity/whatever.

Let's stay off the generalisation please.

Koncordski

I've got no sympathy with them at all. Half the site is legal and can stay, they have always known the other site is illegal and would be removed. Distinct cultural group, prejudice, hatred, misunderstanding blah blah blah.....

They built the site without planning permission, retrospective permission was refused, endless appeals were heard and ultimately refused. This is a planning issue pure and simple, can everyone get some perspective please.

What I find particularly offensive is their insistence on ignoring the law (planning) when it suits them and then using the law to the fullest extent as a way of remaining. The law may or may not be an ass but when everyone ignores the parts they don't personally agree with you ultimately end up with the breakdown of society.

rolf_f

The ideal scenario would have been that the council lost and reacted by throwing bricks at the pikey scumbags. But of course that would be wrong.

If you are going to use legal process to resolve an issue, maybe you should comply with the decision as you'd expect your opponent to do if they lost. Or maybe not......

Pross

bails87 wrote:

mickbrown wrote:

Retrospective planning permission is granted all the time?

Maybe so, but a garage or loft conversion doesn't equate to what is in effect a small housing estate on green belt land.

green belt land= on the former site of a scrapyard.

But even so, I don't know if that means that anyone could build anything anywhere and not be stopped, but then IANAL.

But here's precedent if you want it: http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cg ... 04/33.html

Green belt land is not the same thing as greenfield land. Unfortunately a lot of people seem to not realise this. Green belt can already have development within it but is allocated in a local plan in order:-

• To check the unrestricted sprawl of built-up areas.
• To safeguard the surrounding countryside from further encroachment.
• To prevent neighbouring towns from merging into one another.
• To preserve the special character of historic towns.
• To assist in urban regeneration.

If someone wants to build in green belt land then you would first have to try to convince the LPA that it no longer complies with the above and get the local plan amended.

ketsbaia

What they should have done is wait till the new planning laws come in. You'll be able to build anything anywhere then.

Pross

There's conflicting policies being developed on planning. One wants local people to be able to have more of a say (which will undoubtably lead to NIMBY types preventing development) whilst at the same time the Government are trying to cut back on the red tape that slows down the planning process!

sketchley

I lost any sympathy I had with them a while ago after the court case and the travellers spokesman was being interviewed.

His comment, this is discrimination we just want to be treated the same as everyone else, was met with the BBC correspondent telling him it they were as the same planning laws were being applied to them as everyone else. He seemed not to get the point.

As for the scrapyard thing, I think the legal part of the site is on the former scrap yard, the illegal expansion was into an adjacent field. I maybe wrong on this though.

Pross

The female supporter they interviewed on Radio 5 a few weeks back probably lost them a lot of what sympathy they did have when she was insistent that it was a form of ethnic cleansing even when picked up by the interviewer on whether she considered it to be in any way remotely similar to what happened in the former Yugoslavia!

sketchley

They are hiding behind the race card but it doesn't play true as equal application of planning policy is not racism. Making allowances for a particular group and allowing them to build and keep property without planning permission because they are from an "Ethnic" group is.

Stiff_Orange

Re: the issue of green belt land.

I've just been on the Basildon planning site and the area is defined as Greenbelt. However looking at some interviews with the former owner (and reading through the lines a bit because they had been edited), i think the issue of the scrap yard is one of 'informal' arrangements.
In the 60's a previous owner had been given verbal permission to break/store some carparts on his farmland, nobody complained, the business grew, changed hands. In the 90's somebody took interest, formally complained and the owner was forced to close it down because there was no official recognition of the change in use.
Obviously after 20 years as a scrapyard the land isn't going to look like what people would think of "greenbelt", but that is still it's legal status

Koncordski

Stiff_Orange wrote:

Re: the issue of green belt land.

I've just been on the Basildon planning site and the area is defined as Greenbelt. However looking at some interviews with the former owner (and reading through the lines a bit because they had been edited), i think the issue of the scrap yard is one of 'informal' arrangements.
In the 60's a previous owner had been given verbal permission to break/store some carparts on his farmland, nobody complained, the business grew, changed hands. In the 90's somebody took interest, formally complained and the owner was forced to close it down because there was no official recognition of the change in use.
Obviously after 20 years as a scrapyard the land isn't going to look like what people would think of "greenbelt", but that is still it's legal status

Only applies to the legal half of the site, the half that is being removed was a field not a scrap yard. They could have walked out peacefully after ten years of this nonsense but if they choose to go out on a stretcher it's entirely their choice.

Stiff_Orange

Koncordski wrote:

Only applies to the legal half of the site, the half that is being removed was a field not a scrap yard. They could have walked out peacefully after ten years of this nonsense but if they choose to go out on a stretcher it's entirely their choice.

Sorry mate have to disagree The legal site was built next to the scrapyard. The illegal site was an extension of this site onto the former scrapyard.
But yes, this whole thing has been going on for 10 years and planning appeals have been going back and forth to the highest courts in the land, and they have been found to be in breach of regulations.

The Dale Farm controversy dates back to the 1970s when Basildon Council gave planning permission to 40 English Romany families to live beside what was then a scrapyard.

In 1996 scrapyard owner Ray Bocking, denied permission to carry on his business, sold Dale Farm to an Irish travelling family for £122,000.

Koncordski

To be honest i couldn't care if it was a former biological weapons facility. They fought the law and the law won. Everything else is irrelevant.

davmaggs

The council won't have set out to spend £18 million, this will have accumulated over time in dribs and drabs. The council has been up against a group getting their legal fees paid, which means that they could, and have dragged it without any consequences.

The moment you accept that one group gets a pass due to some special pleading then it is a free for all on all land. Also the moment you decide that you shouldn't enforce the law because it costs money then you will end allowing millionaires or those on legal aid to do what they want.

In short they bought land for a price based on its legal status and got a huge discount because of this. They took a chance at earning a massive profit and lost.

seataltea

The gypsy/travelers on the site have done more to create a negative view of themselves by continually fighting the decision of the court and the local middle class soap dodging hippies have simply magnified this by jumping on the protest bandwagon.

They've had their own way for so long that they forgot no mean no.

gilesjuk

Travellers have tried to do the same thing near where my mother lives. They bought green belt land which was just grass (agricultural land) and then the caravans moved in.

They've failed numerous times to get permission.

Lets face it, it would be a very profitable business if you could buy a big piece of land and then convert it into building land by firstly getting planning permission for caravans and then later houses.

They may think the law is against them (they keep saying this), but it is one law for everyone. We don't want lax laws for specific groups of people just because they're angry and threaten people with violence.

gilesjuk

davmaggs wrote:

In short they bought land for a price based on its legal status and got a huge discount because of this. They took a chance at earning a massive profit and lost.

Exactly, a piece of land that cost £30,000 would normally get about 10 or so houses on it at about £70,000-90,000 a plot for the land. So it would be a nice little earner to turn £30,000 into £700,000-900,000. They're not stupid people.

Wallace1492

But they do such lovely weddings!!

They must have run out of lucky white heather....

rick_chasey

So the police tasered two people:

The police's take

One of the biggest issues of the day has been the police's use of Tasers on two people. Here are the full press conference quotes on the matter from Supt Trevor Roe of Essex police:


Serious violence was offered to a pair of officers in particular. Their response was to protect themselves. They carry personal protective equipment which includes the Taser and they just naturally reacted as they are trained individuals to operate that device.

Acknowledging that Tasers are not recommended as a "public order tactic", he added: "This was an isolated incident where officers were threatened directly."

And he insisted the officers involved were appropriately trained and understood their boundaries.

The associated press journalist:

Stephen Bates has spoken to an AP journalist who witnessed a man being Tasered by police this morning — and his account seems to differ from the official police line that officers were under direct threat.

The journalist told Steve that officers were on the offensive and were not under threat from the man when he was Tasered.

Although stones were being thrown at police, he added, they were being chucked from well behind where the man was.

He also says that police used the Taser on the man — who was a protester rather than an observer — as they shouted their first warning that they were armed with the weapons.

The journalist also reports that police officers dismissed official observers as they moved in, telling them: "We don't care who you are. Get out of the way!

Daily Mash has it about right then.