Dale Farm travellers step up fight to save community

A group of travellers in Essex is preparing for further battle to save its community centre.

Last month the High Court quashed a decision to demolish the St Christopher centre and Basildon District Council leader Malcolm Buckley has announced that Basildon will not contest the judicial review.

However, the fight to save the St Christopher Centre is not yet over. A court of appeal hearing is due to be held on December 4 and Mr Buckley has already been quoted in the Basildon Evening Echo as saying: "Following that hearing, the council expects to be in a position to enforce its decision to clear the unauthorised development at Dale Farm."

The "unauthorised development" includes St Christopher's, which was built using £12,000 Government funding from Essex County Council and is used as a chapel, meeting place, youth club and school.

The Dale Farm community is set to hold a rally on the evening of November 11 outside Basildon District Council's town hall, where the local council committee is "formally reconsidering options" about Dale Farm village.

The evening's activities will begin with a public meeting at St Christopher Centre at 5pm, and the rally will move to the town hall at 7pm.

Grattan Puxon, spokesman for Dale Farm Housing Association, said the protest would be boosted by a group of Roma who will travel from London to support the event, and that there would also be about 150 children who use the centre as a school there.

Mr Puxon said: "Dale Farm has about 1,000 residents, of which about half are facing eviction."

He added that the council's committee meeting was being held 'in camra' in order to prevent any disclosure of personal details, following earlier disputes and that this meant the community was being excluded from the meeting and would not be able to make representations to those making the decision about their lives: "We feel that this closed meeting is a smokescreen. People from Dale Farm should be allowed into the meeting to make representations."

The group has also placed a request with the UN advisory group on forced evictions, which is due to meet in Beijing on Tuesday.

The secretary of the Gypsy Council, Joseph Jones, has been appointed as an expert reporter to the council, which is being asked to place the Dale Farm community on the international register of forced evictions. If successful this would mean a UN observer would be present at any forced eviction, which may have a deterrent effect on any future eviction orders.

Basildon County Council was unable to comment as the agenda for the November 11 meeting has not yet been published.