Dale Farm - £8million for Traveller Evictions

[Evil Knevil]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/31/dale-farm-travellers-lose-eviction

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/aug/26/dale-farm-travellers-prepare-eviction

Might all be a bit tl;dr but basically 86 traveller families settled on some scrapyard land over the past ten years in Basildon (UK). Turns out that this is greenbelt land, and the council has spent tens of millions on evicting them.

Now, I guess most people's opinion is firstly, that they built on restricted land; clearly they are in breach of the law. Secondly, that they can hardly claim special rights over ordinary people (they're hardly travellers any more, after all!)

However, I think it's interesting that the Local Authority has taken such a militant stance against the settlement. They do have a (legal) duty to provide adequate care, sites and housing for traveller communities, which they have manifestly failed to carry out. Likewise, they hope to break up an established community, and chuck them all on a long, inadequate and savage housing waiting list.

I always thought the spirit of Britain was to compromise.
Hmmm

[Provost Harrison]

How have they spent so much? Surely an "unofficial" firebombing would've saved them a fortune?

[Aeson]

Stuart Agnew, the UK Independence Party MEP for the east of England, welcomed the decision. He said: "I am increasingly astonished to hear religious leaders, politicians and now, even an actress, calling for the laws of the land to be set aside to accommodate the Travellers who have illegally taken over the site at Dale Farm.

WTF?

[Cort Haus]

That's probably Vanessa Redgrave, at a guess. She's a luvvie-radical.

[Cort Haus]

EK, how about they get moved to Wimbledon Common?

[Cort Haus]

Anyway, these people shouldn't be above the law.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

so where are they moving to in the end?

[DaShi]

[Something about pandas]

[giblets]

Could someone explain to me what a "traveller" is.

[Zoetstofzoetje]

travellers are gypsies. left-wingies are all ¨boohoo we took their land and made their gypsie culture impossible¨

when they landed in my and my neighbours´ back yard with their flying circus on their way to some horse fare, the police didn´t want to do anything (¨not our land¨) and said we had to evict them ourselves. without forcing them, obviously, because only police officers are allowed to do that. never mind that they were pillaging our land.

the gypsies said they would leave after a week. when this did not materialize, a few of my friends wanted to force them off the premises. the mayor intervened, noting she didn´t want anyone to get hurt, and she would be responsible if that would happen...

when they eventually left another week later, they had burnt all their trash, which damaged the land and the groundwater (toxic crap). the government paid for the repairs. they were happy with the outcome - noone got hurt, after all! never mind that it cost them a lot of money to replace the ground and lay new grass, suck out the groundwater, etc.

the british spirit: lots of yadda yadda, pass the buck, very little action.

[Zoetstofzoetje]

funny thing was, in newspapers the articles tended to argue for the difficult conditions in which these gypsies live, and how we should be more accepting of their presence. the locals who wrote letters, and which were printed, expressed themselves in much less refined manners.

in order to prevent this thing from happening again, the government paid for strong picket fences to surround the land, so that they could not drive onto it any more. of course, they´ll just pick some other spot without a fence the next time, and the circle is round.

[giblets]

Wow, I had no idea gypsies sucked so much. I thought they only kidnapped children and picked pockets.

[Az]

"Breaking up communities is wrong and should never be done. I can build my house wherever the **** I want"
-a squatter or an Israeli settler? one of them is likable because he "fights the man".

[Provost Harrison]

I wouldn't want them on my land, the land I paid for. So why should I have to tolerate more bleeding political correctness and tolerate people not paying rent crashing on my land. Sorry, they may not like the rules, but it is those rules that make our society work. They have been provided with sites in the past that do not interfere with other communities that they can stay on, but this never seems to be quite good enough. I have little sympathy.

[Dinner]

That's probably Vanessa Redgrave, at a guess. She's a luvvie-radical.

Someone should go set up their camping tent on her front lawn & **** in her flower garden every day just to see how she likes it when the shoe is on the other foot.