COUNCIL OF EUROPE VISIT RAISES DALE FARM SPIRIT
By Grattan Puxon
16/02/2011 – News that a Council of Europe fact-finding mission will visit Dale Farm next month has lent encouragement to the ninety beleaguered families facing eviction from Britain’s largest Gypsy village.
The visit will take place on the eve of Basildon’s extraordinary council meeting on 14 March when members must decide whether to go-ahead with what has been labelled a £13m ethnic-cleansing operation.
Families at Dale Farm now hope that lack of funding for the eviction together with this timely European investigation under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities will sway councillors to vote at least for a delay to the long-planned clearance.
“We’re in the midst of finding alternate places to which we can move peacefully,” commented Richard Sheridan, president of the Gypsy Council. “To this end we’re working closely with our MP John Baron and council leader Tony Ball.”
Dale Farm representatives have their next meeting with John Baron on 1 March at Westminster. They are expected to report on the progress of a planning application to develop a mobile-home park for some those made homeless at Dale Farm on land offered by the Homes and Communities Agency.
Because of ecological and other objections already being raised over an initial site at Pound Lane, an alternation location on HCA-owned brownfield in the Gardiners Lane South locality is being considered.
While in London during the second week in March, the FCPNM is to told talks with the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which has also opposed the Dale Farm eviction. The EHRC could be asked to join in a possible legal challenge as it did in 2005 should Basildon serve a 28-day notice on the so-called unauthorized residents.
Meanwhile, supporters are gathering at Dale Farm at the weekend for activities in connection with non-violent resistance to Constant & Co bailiffs, the security company which specializes in forceful removal of Gypsies, being hired by Basildon council at a cost of several million pounds.
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PRESS RELEASE – 14th February 2011
SOME POSITIVE NEWS ON GYPSY COMMUNITIES PLEASE!
“We love Dale Farm, this is our home.” – John O’Conner (age 7)
Children who are facing eviction from their home, Dale Farm in Essex, have participated in a community arts project painting 3 meter high murals depicting the site and the people who live there.
The murals will be installed at the main entrance to the site on Saturday 19th February. All are welcome to view the opening event.
The circumstances of marginalized groups within the UK – Romany Gypsies and Irish Travelers – have received plenty of attention recently with much of the coverage of Channel 4s ‘My Big fat Gypsy Wedding’ more worrying for its casual bigotry than the ill-conceived documentary itself. Meanwhile at Dale Farm UK’s largest Gypsy and Traveler site, and the home of over 1,000 people, accepted racist attitudes towards minority groups appears to be coming to its most miserable conclusion – one of the biggest evictions in British history.
Romany Gypsies and Travellers have lived at Dale Farm legally since the 1960s, more families joining them over the years as councils shut down public sites and Travellers were forced to look for permanent places to settle. However, although half the site has been granted planning permission to build and live on the land, the other half is protected greenbelt and the local council has placed an eviction order for 90 families to be removed and their homes demolished – an action which has been appealed in the high court on the basis that it is racially motivated.
The mural project organised by three London based artists, has helped develop vital literacy skills amongst the children.
The group of emerging artists and photographers from Camden Town, Eloise Taylor, Quintina Valero and Darren Zlatareff, have been running workshops for the children since October 2010
‘We wanted to do this mural with the children to highlight that this is a positive place, a safe place where children live, play and go to school. They are a vulnerable group of children whose literacy levels are below the national average. What they need is support from the local authorities to their human right to education. Not the instability we have seen caused by the councils eviction notice – the fear they will be taken out of school and moved on.’
- Eloise Taylor, project coordinator
For more information about the Save Dale Farm Campaign email: dale.farm@btinternet.com
For more information on the project, including high res images of the murals please contact Eloise Taylor: e: tayloreloise@hotmail.com m: 07873169158.
Monday 21 February 2011
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