Latest on Dale Farm

This article is from the Guardian, printed 3 November, 2011. Please go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/03/dale-farm-struggle for further coverage.

Dale Farm residents struggle on after neighbours' eviction. The conditions are horrendous but the mood is good humoured after a court order protected three pitches at unauthorised site

Written by Patrick Barkham guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 November 2011 11.42 EDT

On an island of gravel surrounded by a sea of mud, Michelle Sheridan closes her caravan door against the stench of raw sewage and makes a cup of tea.

The kettle takes a long time to boil using power from a noisy diesel generator, which runs all day and night. The caravan shudders as the bulldozers smash through a plot next door.

Two weeks after riot police stormed the Traveller site in Essex, sisters Michelle and Nora Sheridan, their seven children and their mother, Mary Flynn, are still going about their daily lives encircled by chaos and bailiffs.

Despite the eviction of more than 80 families, the Sheridans and two other families remain and have a legal right to live on Dale Farm after a court order protected three pitches on the unauthorised site.

Basildon council is obliged under this court order to maintain services but the families say their water is contaminated and the council-supplied generators that provide electricity have blown up their washing machines and dryers. With all the mud, the Sheridans' clothes, sheets and rugs need regular washing: Michelle's last laundry bill was £107.

Clothes are drying on a broken fence. Sewage from a septic tank accidentally broken by bailiffs leaks across the rubbish-strewn soil.

"The people who are still here are the ones that desperately need to be here," said Michelle. "We've just watched our chalet being squashed. We lived there for 10 years and had so many memories. But the children are back at school and we're trying to keep it as normal as possible for them."

The council pledged to return Dale Farm to green fields at the end of the £18m eviction. But the former scrapyard has not been a green field in living memory, and it looks a distant prospect.

Almost all the chalets have been cleared away but dilapidated fences still wobble between empty plots. Contractors are instructed to dig down on each plot until they reach the soil but they only seem to have exposed a contaminated mess of subsoil, rubble and rubbish. Fragments of plastic toys that once belonged to children on the site are ground into the dirt.

Despite the horrendous conditions, the mood is good humoured. The protesters and the police have departed and the remaining Travellers say they have never met such nice bailiffs. The contractors are polite.

The tension rises, however, when council officials visit to discuss when the Sheridans will leave their pitch.

The family has agreed to move temporarily on to a neighbouring plot to allow the council to dig out the hardcore on their pitch. Then they can return – to mud, because the council says the gravel they want to put down is, in planning terms, hardcore.

"Once they get us out they are going to make the pitch uninhabitable," said Michelle.

The road through Dale Farm is to be removed, so the Sheridans will not be able to tow their caravans on and off their pitch. Instead, the council will provide a walkway to enable the ambulance service to gain wheelchair access for 72-year-old Flynn, who has osteoporosis and suffers chronic obstructive pulmonary disease that has left her with a lung capacity "barely compatible with life", according to court medical evidence.

Candy Sheridan, a former councillor who is representing the families, said their presence on Dale Farm was an embarrassment for the council and accused it of "low-level intimidation" to get rid of them.

"Basildon council wanted total site clearance. They are telling me they will abide by the court order. They are also saying the plots will be uninhabitable. The two things don't marry up. I want the families to live in peace on their lawful sites," she said.

Tony Ball, leader of the council, denied that its attitude was to remove the last Dale Farm Travellers from the borough at any cost. He said the families had been offered bricks and mortar accommodation.

"My personal view is why would they want to stay in the middle of what is still a building site?" he said. "I'm satisfied that what we've done is the right thing to do and I'm heartened by the progress we've made, which has been substantial."

The Sheridans say they will leave if the council approves a meticulously planned new application for a 12-pitch site nearby, which will be considered at an appeal hearing later this month.

"The best thing would be to give us permission for a new site nearby so we can care for the sick and our children can go to [the local] school," said Michelle.

But Ball cast doubt on the likelihood of the new site being approved, saying it had already been turned down on environmental and conservation grounds. "There was also an objection from Natural England, so as far as the council is concerned that land isn't suitable for any development either," he said.

"I keep saying to Basildon council, you are going to end up with the best Gypsy site in the world," said Candy Sheridan of the Travellers' revised application, which includes a nature reserve for newts. "Every time I say it their faces drop."

Dale Farm Eviction: A Peaceful Close?

These were the headlines in the past 24 hours covering the Dale Farm eviction


Police make 34 arrests after violent clashes
5 supporters mount roof top of building in protest
Travellers: "there is no more to be done"

and then:
Dale Farm eviction comes to a peaceful close.

Here are there own reports:

The use of Taser is at the crux of a debate in today's papers about the level of police force used.

The Guardian describes a protester "writhing on the floor" due to the Taser, and says the "force and efficiency of police left many in shock."

Similarly, the Independent's front page picture reads "Dale Farm burns - but police fight fire with fire". Inside, they quote the law reform group Justice, who "expressed concern at the use of the weapons".

The Times , meanwhile, says Dale Farm's end was "swift, clinical and violent". It says the use of Tasers prompts accusations of a breach of guidelines, which say "electric shocks should not be used as crowd control". But its leading article is also quick to credit Essex Police for "minimising conflict".

09.43  The police have confirmed that a Taser was used on one man yesterday by officers "who were faced with a serious level of violence". After the Taser was used, "the man disappeared in to the crowd".

(emphasis mine)

Please note the difference in what the witness reported about the use of the taser and what the police said.

And what is to happen to these people after the eviction?

Much of the debate around the Dale Farm eviction hinges on the issue of post-eviction housing. Basildon Council claims it has gone to extensive lengths to find council accommodation for the travellers, while the travellers say these offers have been risible.

The Independent are running a piece about Michelle Fox , who has four children and has lived at Dale Farm for 10 years. She says the best offer she received was not of accommodation in a house, but in a hostel.

We know from reports yesterday that buildings were broken into by police, buildings that were protected under court order. We know that people were injured, that police used weapons, and yet....the Dale Farm eviction came to "a peaceful close." Good for you, England. Citizens may sleep peacefully tonight knowing their government used millions of tax dollars to evict and leave homeless almost 400 people.

Dale Farm Emergency Injunction

This comes to us from the Roma Virtual Network. Please pass this on to anyone you know who could get word out.

Dale Farm emergency injunction sought in response to ‘unlawful’ police operation

Posted onOctober 19, 2011 by dalefarmsupport

For comment and interview
07040900905
07583761462
Dale Farm supporters are pursuing emergency injunction to stop the eviction as police brutality and illegal destruction of property traumatise residents.
Despite Basildon Council’s claims, human rights observers have reported that the police are conducting a brutal, dangerous and unlawful eviction.
Mary Sheridan, a Dale Farm resident who has taken her children off site and is staying in a relative’s lawful plot, said:
“The only premeditated violence has come from the police- they knew exactly what they were doing when they started beating and tazering people. This is not how a community should be treated by its own Council. It’s illegal for us to travel, but illegal for us to settle down here. We’re getting hit by the police but we’ve got nowhere else to go.”

Instances of police violence reported by trained human rights observers and witnesses include:
- Witnesses report the use of tasers by police from the beginning of the eviction
- Police forced entry onto the site by using sledgehammers to break down a wall of a fully legal plot on the edge of the site. This is not only in violation of court order and constitutes criminal damage, but it is also highly dangerous. Vulnerable and elderly residents had stayed on that plot expecting to be safe as it is protected through court decisions, and were highly traumatised as police sledgehammered through the wall. At least two women residents sustained head injuries.
- Batons have been used on supporters and residents from the beginning of the eviction
- Severe injuries of residents and protesters have been witnessed by human rights observers and the press. One woman sustained such serious injuries from police that she had to be admitted to hospital.
- The plot of a resident who needs a breathing machine to survive has had it’s electricity cut.

Natalie Fox, a spokesperson for Dale Farm Solidarity supporter group, said,
“Far from being the dignified eviction that Basildon Council is claiming, this is set to be one of the most brutal evictions on record. The Council know that there are elderly and vulnerable people on site, as well as children, but they have gone in with a full frontal and brutal approach which is already resulting in injuries. The world is watching. “
Follow @letdalefarmlive for live updates.
Link: http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/dale-farm-emergency-injunction-sought-in-response-to-unlawful-police-operation/

Dale Farm eviction and a request for help

Please consider your reactions. People need help keeping their homes from an unjust eviction.

COME DOWN TO DALE FARM AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

The Court of Appeal has just rejected the residents' right to a judicial review, which means that Basildon Council will be able to come on to conduct an eviction from now onwards.

We need supporters to come down as soon as possible to help resist this eviction. We need people to come willing to engage in civil disobedience as well as support residents and activists in resisting the eviction through non-arrestable roles. It may seem like a scary thing to do, but coming down to Dale Farm is one of the most important things we can do for the community here, and to protest the injustice that even the United Nations and Amnesty International have unreservedly condemned. This is a historic moment of resistance - let's do something.

The residents have nowhere to go. They are united in resisting the eviction, and we have been working with them to develop plans and strategies. Travellers in the UK are at the receiving end of state violence. The way the Dale Farm community is being treated is a form of ethnic cleansing which criminalizes a people and a culture, and it is vital that we come together in solidarity to resist it. We are ready to resist the eviction, and we need more people to join us and the residents as soon as you can come down. Bring a sleeping bag, food and resistance paraphernalia. (For a full list of things to bring, how to get here - only 30 min from London- and other important info, see http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/activity/ or call 07583621312).

In addition to getting supporters down to Dale Farm, we still need a lot of funds to cover the work we have been doing so far. Please donate at: http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/donate/