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Battle set to force out itinerants
Source: Agencies |
September 20, 2011, Tuesday
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Print Edition
ITINERANTS and their supporters barricaded themselves behind newly-built brick walls and chained themselves to fences yesterday as officials prepared to evict them from an illegal camping site in southeast England at the end of a decade-long battle.
One woman was chained by her neck to the main gate, while others lay down under cars or clambered up hastily erected scaffolding and wooden platforms as they waited for the bailiffs to arrive.
"If you attempt to open this gate you will kill her," one protester said. "All over the site, people are attached to immovable objects. If force is used, limbs will be broken or worse."
Banners draped round the caravans and low-rise buildings said "No ethnic cleansing," "Save us" and "Justice." A police helicopter hovered overhead.
The showdown between the bailiffs and the itinerants - also called gypsies or tinkers - and a variety of protest groups who have joined their cause marks the climax of one of the UK's most contentious and bitter planning rows.
Basildon Council in Essex said it was purely a planning dispute, with the travelers breaking the law by illegally building on the Green Belt, the band of countryside around London intended to stop urban sprawl.
However, the travelers accuse the council and courts of breaching their human rights, targeting a vulnerable group whose choice of lifestyle does not conform with the mainstream.
One woman was chained by her neck to the main gate, while others lay down under cars or clambered up hastily erected scaffolding and wooden platforms as they waited for the bailiffs to arrive.
"If you attempt to open this gate you will kill her," one protester said. "All over the site, people are attached to immovable objects. If force is used, limbs will be broken or worse."
Banners draped round the caravans and low-rise buildings said "No ethnic cleansing," "Save us" and "Justice." A police helicopter hovered overhead.
The showdown between the bailiffs and the itinerants - also called gypsies or tinkers - and a variety of protest groups who have joined their cause marks the climax of one of the UK's most contentious and bitter planning rows.
Basildon Council in Essex said it was purely a planning dispute, with the travelers breaking the law by illegally building on the Green Belt, the band of countryside around London intended to stop urban sprawl.
However, the travelers accuse the council and courts of breaching their human rights, targeting a vulnerable group whose choice of lifestyle does not conform with the mainstream.
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