Traveller site is slowly expanding (From Echo)
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Traveller site is slowly expanding
3:40pm Tuesday 2nd October 2012 in News
COUNCIL bosses are deciding what action to take over a traveller site which is slowly being expanded.
Basildon Council officers, accompanied by police, visited the site in Harrow Road, North Benfleet, after tempers flared when they initially tried to speak to families.
There is permission for three traveller plots on the land near Fanton Hall Cottages. However, there have been alleged unauthorised extensions over the past few years into a field owned by one of the families and more mobile homes added.
A resident nearby, who did not want to be named, said: “The council doesn’t seem to be doing anything.
“I have asked the officers and they have always said they are tied up with Dale Farm, but that was nearly a year ago, and it has continued to grow.
“I think there might have been problems because the officer told me they had to go there with the police because of a row that broke out when they tried to go down there on their own.”