TRAVELLER landlords are cashing in on illegal development at Crays Hill through state handouts.

A Basildon Council probe has identified a number of traveller landlords are being paid housing benefits to cover ground rent for poorer families who live on their land.

Officers originally launched an investigation into housing benefits at the site, after the Echo revealed at least 15 families were getting public money to pay a private company in West Sussex, which rents them mobile homes.

The probe has revealed some travellers who live on the illegal site are also receiving benefits to cover their ground rent.

This money goes to the traveller landlords who own the land, some of whom live at the neighbouring legal gipsy site.

Council leader Tony Ball said: “I understand there was a freeze put on some claims while the whole issue is looked at.

“We want to know why some people get £25 for mobile homes, while others get £125 a week.

“The issue of ground rent being paid to traveller landowners has also been identified.

“We are looking to see if it should be paid now the sites are illegal, because all appeals are exhausted.”

Mr Ball stressed it was the Inland Revenue and Valuation Office Agency which determined if money had to be paid, not the council which processes payments.

Landlords at the site include John and Mary Heggerty, who own three unauthorised pitches and a neighbouring legal plot.

Mr Heggerty gets housing benefit paid to him for ground rent from at least one unauthorised pitch occupied by Nora Sheridan, 84.

Other landlords are former spokesman Patrick Egan, 42, who owns the authorised Dale Farm house, which gives the site its name, plus three neighbouring unauthorised pitches, and John Sheridan, also called John Flynn, 42, who originally purchased the unauthorised site to sell as plots. He owns two unauthorised plots occupied by women. It is not clear if they are also receiving housing benefit.

David McPherson-Davis, a Ramsden Crays Parish councillor, said: “Is it right people should profit from an illegal development using public money?”

However, Grattan Puxon, a campaigner for the site, maintains it is simply about providing desperately needed accommodation for travellers, with those who are better off helping the more needy.