Do-gooders should stay off the Dale Farm bandwagon

Vanessa Redgrave refused to say live on BBC radio if she would object if gipsies moved in next door to her.

We have recently had a number of them turning up in Shoebury and messing up our open spaces. I also notice that every person interviewed by the media has an Irish accent.

I love law-abiding Irish people and many are my friends.

What are this lot doing coming here and flagrantly breaking the laws that all other British and Irish people have to obey?

It makes me sick when they play the race and ethnic cleansing card. This is nothing to do with race.

Boot them all out of Dale Farm and make them subject to the rules we all have to obey.

John Carr
High Street
Shoebury

...Now Dale farm is a UN matter, or rather the UN is sticking its nose in without being fully aware of the facts.

These travellers are breaking the law of the land. Does the UN now support the law being broken?

This would make a good film, starring Ms Redgrave in her comeback entitled Carry on Down on the Farm.

These people are not an ethnic minority as some now claim, they appear to be of Irish descent who have chosen this way of life.

Reading history it seems these people bought land on the cheap, then flouted the law by building without permission. Basildon Council is to blame by not taking action ten years ago.

If I built onto my house without permission, the council would be on to me within weeks, if not days.

Bob Balser
Havengore Close
Great Wakering

...With an obvious desire for publicity, Vanessa Redgrave should have joined the Speaker’s wife, Sally Bercow, on Celebrity Big Brother, instead of interfering with matters which concern local people who have tolerated all manner of problems from travellers who do not travel.

These people are satisfied to build homes without any planning permission, courtesy of a very weak council over the years.

As for the bishops, they have a vested interest as many of the non-travellers now attend church regularly.

Chas Cheesman
The Grove
Southend

...The Dale Farm evictions are a bad day for Basildon, a bad day for Essex. They are demonstrating the worst aspect of Essex life, where the fear of strangers has won out against ideas of charity and compassion.

Not for a moment do I defend the ignoring of planning regulations, but let’s be honest – there are plenty of examples throughout Essex outside the traveller community.

The making homeless of young families, the elderly and the infirm is unforgivable.

This is a pogrom against an easy target whose biggest offence, it would seem, is to affect house price inflation for their neighbours.

The irony is, of course, that this is occurring against a backdrop of planning law changes that will make building on the greenbelt so much easier.

Julian Ware-Lane
Nelson Road
Leigh

...Your report (Sept 2) about alleged anarchists at Dale Farm is disturbing, but only proves the point that the whole matter is getting out of hand.

It has become more than a technicality about enforcement of planning rules, and is likely to be disproportionately costly and disruptive to remove the residents from the area.

If the site is cleared, the 80 families will need to be given subsidised social housing, or found other sites.

You report that landowners can expect no help from the council, police or courts should their properties be illegally occupied.

How ironic that all the effort will be put into evicting the travellers from land they actually own.

Basildon Council should admit that, in this case, the law is beyond enforcement.

Four years is the usual time limitation in planning law and most at Dale Farm have been there longer.

If necessary, the Government should intervene and call a halt to all this, however unpalatable that would be.

Last month we saw police were often outwitted and sometimes intimidated by teenage looters. There probably are some left-wing troublemakers in Crays Hill, but the main problem will be families refusing to move.

There might well be individuals lying in front of bulldozers or chaining themselves to heavy objects.

Even if the residents are entirely passive, allowing the police to carry them away, it could still take 1,000 officers to carry out this task.

Whatever happens could be either oppressive or absurd. I hope some practicable solution can be found.

Denis Garne
Central Avenue
Southend

...I think Basildon Council has shot itself in the foot over the Dale Farm evictions.

It has left it far too late in the day to enforce the planning laws, but has also gone too far down the eviction route to now turn back.

We are left with an impossible situation which is attracting fringe supporters from all over the shop and which has also prompted the United Nations to get involved.

The eviction issue is bad enough without outside agencies poking their noses in where it is neither welcome nor serves any useful propose.

Jim Arthur
Watlington Road
Benfleet