1:00am Thursday 13th August 2009
TRAVELLERS are planning a legal challenge to stop Basildon Council crossing private land to evict them.
Yesterday, the Echo revealed the council had adopted powers to cross neighbours’ land and base vehicles there, without permission, during a mass eviction at Dale Farm, Crays Hill, and Hovefields, Wickford.
It means bailiffs could bypass a planned human shield at the entrance to the site and come at Dale Farm from any direction.
Simon Wiesenthal Centre – an international non-governmental organisation which fights far-right policies – has issued an open letter to the European Parliament identifying the bid to clear Dale Farm as an example of the UK being one of the worst offenders for anti-traveller policy in Europe.
Grattan Puxon, a campaigner for Dale Farm, said: “Basildon has been accused of hardline approaches by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre and now we learn of it tearing over people’s land.
“It could be a legal minefield with convoys charging over private property.
“It is something we will immediately be showing our solicitor, Keith Lomax, to see if there are grounds for judicial review.”
Mr Puxon said traveller landowners on the legal site, who own most of Oak Lane, had already written to the council asking it to explain why it believed it could send bailiffs through their property, without authorisation.
He added: “The landowners have certainly not given permission and we argue, under human rights laws, they are entitled to peaceful homes which would be shattered by convoys of vehicles coming through at dawn. So far there has been no reply from the council.”
Meanwhile, travellers from Dale Farm and Hovefields are currently undergoing homelessness interviews at the Basildon Centre.
As many as 140 applications have been made to see if the council has a duty to rehouse anyone it evicts, but decisions, which will be taken individually, have yet to be made.
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