[Imc-uk-features] FW: DALE FARM : CRITICAL CROSS-ROADS

[dale.farm]

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From: dale.farm <dale.farm at ntlworld.com>
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 09:19:04 +0100
Cc: RedAlertR17, RedAlertR16, redAlertR19, RedAertR21, Redalert9
Bcc: RedAkertR22
Subject: FW: DALE FARM : CRITICAL CROSS-ROADS


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From: dale.farm <dale.farm at ntlworld.com>
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 09:15:57 +0100
To: <ed.stafford at odpm.gsi.gov.uk>, <trevor.diesch at odpm.gov.uk>,
<psdpm at odpm.gov.uk>, <bob.last at fco.gov.uk>, <evictions at cohre.org>,
<tphillips at cre.gov.uk>
Cc: RedAlertR6, RedAlertR4, RedAlertR2, RedAlertR13, RedAlertR11(Col)
Bcc: Red AlertR1
Subject: DALE FARM : CRITICAL CROSS-ROADS

STOP PRESS:

Residents of Dale Farm have been
invited to take  part in the service at St Paul Cathedral
to mark the tenth anniversary of
Racial Justice Sunday (Sunday, 11 Sept 6pm).

They will walk in procession through the
cathedral under the banner "SAVE DALE FARM"
and carry a large blue and green flag, embossed with
a red wheel (symbol of the European Roma and Travellers
Forum, at Strasbourg).

This flag, presented to Dale Farm by the Romani Democratic
Party of Serbia, currently flies over the scaffolding towers
erected at the entrance to Dale Farm to prevent entry of
"unauthorised vehicles", including bulldozers hired by
Constant & Co. from HE Services for the purpose of
a direct action eviction attempt.

"Since Constant has ignored the High Court
injunction," says Richard Sheridan, chair of the
residents committee, "we are not allowing any heavy
vehicles onto Dale Farm. It's for the safety of our children."

During the eviction of two yards at Hovesfield, Wickford,
on July 26 it is alleged that a bulldozer belonging to
HE Services smashed through fencing on property
known as Ash View,belonging to Mrs Gilheaney.
This property is protected by a High Court injunction
pending a judicial review.



DALE FARM: CRITICAL CROSS-ROADS
TO:

Rt Hon John Prescott
Deputy Prime Minister


Dear Mr Prescott,

With the Planning Appeals now before you concerning our homes at Dale Farm,
Crays Hill,
Essex, you have in your hands the fate of all 1,000 of us in this community.

We know that you are anxious to create new homes, and especially affordable
housing.
Here at Dale Farm we have done so for a large number of our own people, all
related
families who for many generations travelled together on the roads of this
country.

By granting Planning Permission on the current Appeals you will be ensuring
the future
of all of us, our children now in local schools and our sick and elderly,
who often for the
first time are receiving the regular health treatment they need.

Planning Permission has already been granted for the 40 plots/yards on the
adjacent
land along Oak Lane, occupied by our relatives. The Dale Farm site consisted
in large part
of a scrap yard and contained as early as l924 a dozen permanent buildings.
Add to this fact
that hundreds of houses are shortly to be build close by on the southside of
the A127
and we can see no argument for preserving the small area of greenbelt
(former plotlands)
than we occupied for the past several years.

We do not wish to move to another piece of land, nor do we want to give up
our
very large investment in Dale Farm to go onto some inferior council-run
caravan-site.
With due respect, we are determined to hold on to what we have and will
fight for
it against the outrageous plan of extreme Tory-led Basildon Council to spend
up to
£3 million in attempting to bulldoze our homes and our hopes.

The support of both the Labour and Liberal-Democrat councillors for our
stand is
making it increasing difficult for Tory Leader Malcolm Buckley to force
through
his "final solution". A solution which Wickford Primary Health Care Trust
says
will cause an inevitable violent confrontation, with injurious to women and
children,
and which has been likened by Jewish Human Rights Monitors as something
out of  Hitler's Germany of the l930s.

The proposed destruction of Dale Farm would in reality be an act of
ethnic-cleansing
hiding behind planning regulations, and has been condemned as such by Human
Rights advocacy  groups in Washington, by the European Roma and Travellers
Forum,
by the IRU Roma Parliament, by members of Amnesty International, Helsinki
Human
Rights Watch, Liberty and many other international groups and institutions.

At present Dale Farm is protected by a High Court Injunction pending a
Judicial
Review. But should at some future date the "direct action operation" be
permitted
to go ahead, it will take place in the full glare of national and
international media
attention - and is already being compared to the bulldozing of homes in
Zimbabwe.

Representing Britain and British values on television screens around the
world will
be the brutish antics of the bully-boys hired by Constant & Co., the private
security
company that boasts "specialising in evicting Gypsies", and has already
bulldozed
and burned hundreds of homes. It is being assisted in Basildon by
H.E.Services, the
plant-hire company chaired by Hugh Edeleanu, one of whose bulldozers
recently crashed
through fencing and violated property protected by a High Court Injunction
while
employed on a Constant-led eviction at Wickford.

It is enough to say that Constant & Co is facing large claims for damages by
families who, in most cases, have since taken refuge at Dale Farm following
the destruction and wanton burning of property at Chelmsford and
Borehamwood.

Mr Prescott, you and you alone at this juncture are in a position to prevent
further
devastation and break the deadlock brought about by Mr Buckley's
hard-line, racist opposition to the continued residence of our families at
Dale Farm.

PLEASE DO SO BY GRANTING US PLANNING PERMISSION FOR OUR HOMES.

Sincerely

Richard Sheridan
chair, Dale Farm Residents Committee

Grattan Puxon
secretary, Dale Farm Housing Association

*************************
RACIAL JUSTICE SUNDAY -  RALLY UNDER DALE FARM BANNER

All members of the Save Dale Farm Campaign are invited to
the Racial Justice Sunday service in St Paul's Cathedral, on
September 11 (rehearsal at 4.30) commencing at 6 pm

Please reply as soon as possible to dale.farm at ntlworld.com

*********************************************




COPY OF LETTER TO BASILDON DISTRICT COUNCIL:

TO: phillip.hamberger at basildon.gov.uk

Assistant Chief Executive
Basildon District Council

Thank you for your message confirming
the meeting on l3 September with Richard Sheridan
and Kathleen McCarthy, and other members of the Dale
Farm residents' committee.

As I mentioned, Mrs McCarthy has recently been windowed
but I will speak to her about the meeting on Tuesday.

I shall be glad to be there, in my capacity of secretary
of the Dale Farm Housing Association. This has some 80
members and while in its early stages could play an
important role.

The situation presently is that an injunction prevents Basildon
District Council from taking enforcement action, for which it
has voted (21 to 18) to spend between £2m and £3m (including
legal costs). It has engaged Constant & Co. a company with a
reputation for brutality, which is being suing over the burning
of private property, including a mobile-home and chalet, during
evictions at Chelmsford and Borehamwood.

The yard-owners (plots) at Dale Farm have applied for
a judicial review.

Meanwhile, some 11 yard-owners are awaiting the result
of an appeal against refusal of planning permission, expected
soon to be announced by John Prescott at the ODPM.

A majority of the other yard-owners are in the process
of appealing.

Obviously, the primary aim of all the yard-owners is to
obtain planning permission, similar to that granted to
yard-owners on the adjoining Oak Lane (which is also
Greenbelt). Part of the Dale Farm area was a registered
scrap-yard.

In addition to the yard-owners and their families, there
are some people living at Dale Farm who would be willing
to consider moving to alternative yards, or mobile-home
parks. They would, in the main, wish these to be privately-owned
and managed by themselves (rather than by the council).
They could be collectively-owned by the housing association
and run by its members.

That about sums up the current position. All the children
of school age will be returning to Crays Hill Primary School
and other local schools in September.

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