10:02am Thursday 7th June 2007
By Jon Austin
TRAVELLERS have been given their marching orders from Dale Farm.
Councillors voted in private to turf 11 families from part of the site at the latest development control committee.
About 40 people from the site, in Oak Lane, Crays Hill, packed the Basildon Centre as impassioned pleas were made against evictions.
They earlier waved banners saying "Please, Mr Buckley, don't bulldoze our homes".
Campaigner Joe Jones called for extra time until a series of issues was resolved.
He said: "We need to get to the negotiating table with Basildon Council, county council and police.
"We have got terminally ill people and eviction isn't the answer. We have another inquiry coming up and the judicial review. Basildon Council has not looked at any alternative accommodation to reach an amicable solution."
Dale Farm spokesman Richard Sheridan urged councillors to visit the site and investigate the special needs among the community living there.
Geoff Williams, Basildon Lib Dem group leader, is no longer on the committee, but spoke.
"If you choose the option that will force these people on to the road, I wish you well with your conscience."
However, Tory councillor Terri Sargent (Crouch) said: "This is purely an issue about development in the green belt and we must preserve this."
She said the village community had been affected and mothers no longer chatted at Crays Hill Primary School gates because they had "lost it to the travellers".
Traveller Kathleen McCarthy described the remark as "racist".
Public and press were then excluded before a lengthy debate.
Labour councillor Lynda Gordon (Lee Chapel North) refused to take part after previously saying she was prejudiced against evicting.
But colleague Danny Nandanwar, who was told by the Standards Board it was fine to take part despite campaigning against using force, was the only councillor to vote against an eviction.
The remaining four councillors, all Conservative, voted to bring in the bulldozers.
Many of us are sick and need support
TRAVELLERS living at Dale Farm are concerned over the impact a mass eviction with heavy machinery would have on the sick and elderly people living there.
Several members of the community claim Dale Farm is their only home, keeping them from a life of repeated roadside evictions.
American student Zachary Scott, 26, has taken time out of studying a masters degree at Georgetown University, Washington, to live at the site. He highlighted some serious cases.
He said: "Margaret McCarthy is terminally ill. She cannot even step out of her chalet or walk. In an eviction, how could they guarantee her safety?"
Mrs McCarthy, 86, told the Echo: "I am very frightened. I can't sleep at night. I have no other place to go and am very sick, with high blood pressure and shortness of breath."
She lives with brother, Dan Sheridan, 74, who is partially deaf, and next door to her granddaughter and great granddaughter Denise, two.
The circumstances of many occupying the 11 plots now facing bulldozers are disturbing.
There are 28 women, mostly single mothers, and three pensioners. There are just five men over 18 to support them and three of these are over 60 with health problems.
The list of serious ailments includes diabetes, depression, rheumatoid arthritis, high blood pressure and angina. One 74-year-old man has trigerninal neuralgia and regularly coughs up blood.
There are 28 school-aged children. Some have special needs such as profound deafness.
The families living on this part of the site are no strangers to tragedy. The daughters of John and Kathleen McCarthy, who tragically died in an accidental mobile home blaze in May 2005, are still living on the plot and now face eviction.
Melissa, 18, and Rosemarie, 13, still suffer from nightmares and receive counselling.
Mr Scott added: "Kathleen O'Brien, 38, has two profoundly deaf children aged 10 and 12. They receive special education in Rayleigh. If they are forced off, it will drastically limit their education."
But he said these cases were just the "tip of the ice berg", with other terminally ill people unable to get out of bed.
Another worry is pregnant women, including Michelle Culligan, aged in her 20s, who is two weeks overdue giving birth.
Site spokesman Richard Sheridan said: "The council needs to come and do a full needs assessment of the situation. We are happy for them to come down and investigate.
"An eviction would have a tragic effect on these people's access to healthcare, running water, schools and special needs."
While the travellers now live in fear of an early-morning raid by bailiffs, they sent a defiant warning to the council about staying in Basildon.
Spokesman Kathleen McCarthy said: "My two children are getting married before Christmas.
"They will move to the legal site where their partners live. If they move us, we will just move onto the legal site with them because we are all related - aunts, cousins and uncles.
"We will stay in the area, in parks and pieces of ground, and I will still travel down Oak Lane every day to see them.
"So they may as well just leave us be until we get permission at Pitsea and some can move there and still be near our relatives.
"It will save the taxpayers all that money for moving us."
Need for more sites
BASILDON could be forced to develop even more legal travellers' sites.
The East of England Regional Assembly has two plans for future travellers' sites in the region, both of which would see Basildon Council having to set up further sites.
The first option would see Basildon accommodate a further 157 legal pitches on top of its existing 106.
Only districts which currently have unauthorised camps would need to provide new sites under this plan.
Option two is for all councils in the region to provide at least 15 legal caravan pitches, but those with high numbers of unauthorised camps would still have to accommodate more, with Basildon developing 95 new legal plots.
This would be enough to accommodate most travellers currently living illegally in Basildon.
Politicians and 120 traveller representatives met at the Essex Records Office, Wharf Road, Chelmsford, to discuss the plans.
At the talks, few authorities could agree on the plans.
Southend Council representatives said they had no room and Basildon leader Malcolm Buckley argued that both options leave his district with an unfair burden in terms of sheer weight of traveller sites.
Mr Buckley said: "All councils need to provide sites for travellers, so we support that element of option two, but the levels proposed for Basildon in both options are totally unfair."
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