BASILDON BOROUGH Council in Essex says it will start the evictions of Travellers from a campsite at the weekend if it wins a legal case prompted by a last-minute injunction which halted the operation on Monday.
“No decision has been taken, but this is a seven-day operation and we could move in on the Saturday,” said a spokesman for the council, which has put aside up to £8 million (€9.2 million) to pay for the evictions. Essex police has set down a budget of £10 million.
The council is seeking to evict several hundred Travellers who they say are living on sites that do not have planning permission.
A plan to proceed with the evictions on Monday was halted at the last minute after Travellers secured an injunction preventing the council from entering the site to clear the unauthorised plots.
The council’s legal challenge to that injunction is to be heard on Friday. It yesterday gave details of the eviction orders made against the 51 pitches on the illegal part of the six-acre site in Billericay, outside Basildon. Travellers insist some of the notices are faulty.
Grattan Puxon of the Gypsy Council said some occupants of the contested section of Dale Farm, especially those in mobile homes and chalets, were there legally, despite the fact planning permission was never granted.
“The remaining issue is what is a touring caravan, which they can remove, and what is a static home, which they can’t,” he said.
Under the high court order, the residents are supposed to open up the heavily barricaded gates at the campsite by tomorrow, although council officials appear to have little intention of entering then.
It is understood the Travellers must take down a canopy covering the top part of scaffolding built at the gates, which police fear could be used by some protesters to fire missiles at police and bailiffs.
“They can’t have a pick-and-mix approach to the law and accept it when it gives what they want, but don’t when it doesn’t,” said Cormac Smith, a Westminster City Council official deployed with Basildon Borough Council.
Conservative leader of Basildon council Tony Ball said there would be “anarchy” in the planning system if the illegal section of Dale Farm was allowed to continue without planning permission.
“If we did not enforce the judgment we have been granted here, then how could any other local authority in the country impose planning controls?” he asked. “We cannot turn a blind eye to this. We have been waiting for 10 years, so another few days will not matter.”
Dozens of families who had left in the days running up to Monday’s deadline to stay in the legal but largely unoccupied front section of Dale Farm have started returning to their plots, insisting this time they will not leave.