Bailiffs are making final preparations before they begin clearing the Dale Farm travellers’ site in Essex.
As many as 400 people have been living on the 51 unauthorised caravan plots – but officials said 12 families had already left the site at Crays Hill.
Those remaining have built reinforcements at the six-acre site.
Police have been drafted in from several forces ready for the eviction at the UK’s largest unauthorised travellers’ site.
It is understood representatives of the Gypsy Council, the Irish Traveller Movement and a resident, Kathleen McCarthy, were due to meet council officials shortly after 10:00 BST.
Mary Sheridan, a representative of the residents, has applied for a personal injunction in another bid to stop the evictions and this will be heard by the Court of Appeal at 11:30 BST.
The campaign against the travellers has been spearheaded by a man who residents refer to as ‘our racist neighbour’. During my visit he was arrested for attempting to burn down a structure on the site. A stockpile of firearms was seized from his house. He has also reportedly sprayed sewage close to the encampment. Yet newspaper sources have for the most part given a sympathetic hearing to him.
The same can’t be said for the residents who risk losing their homes – including children who risk losing their access to education. Nor do the people from outside the camp who have agreed to help resist the eviction get a good press. While I am there the local newspaper writes about ‘anarchist thugs’ coming to Basildon. During a lengthy conversation with a journalist I turn the questions on him and ask him about the coverage so far. ‘To be honest, the story’s mostly written before we get here,’ he tells me, ‘and writing about thoughtful bookish types standing up for human rights doesn’t sell newspapers the same way as stories about anarchists and violence.’ It is no surprise that mainstream media access to the site has been restricted to allotted times.
Reahttp://www.newint.org/blog/2011/09/16/dale-farm-evictions-travellers-rights/
The Free 