Travellers allowed by judge to stay at ‘Dale Farm 2’ site

A JUDGE has given travellers permission to stay at an illegal camp on green belt land dubbed Dale Farm 2.

Mr Justice Singh controversially altered an injunction to allow around a dozen residents to stay on the site.

However, more than 50 families are believed to be planning to move there after 700 tonnes of building material were delivered by a convoy of trucks.

Furious locals last night accused the judge – a human rights lawyer who co-founded Cherie Blair’s Matrix Chambers – of ‘making a mockery’ of the planning system.

Homeowners fear the camp, in Wickford, Essex, will become another Dale Farm – the notorious site in nearby Crays Hill that was demolished in 2011 after a ten-year legal fight and a violent eviction battle costing £7million. Jill Walsh, chairman of Hovefields Residents’ Association, said: ‘It just makes a mockery of the whole planning system. That decision just gives the green light to travellers eve- rywhere.’ Another resident, who asked not to be named, added: ‘I’m absolutely disgusted.

‘They can just go there, live there and do what they want while we deal with the consequences.’

Work at the site began in February despite an injunction preventing development imposed in October last year. The order restricted occupation of the land to a small group living there at the time.

But part of the site was subsequently sold to another resident, who moved onto the site with ten others and the group challenged the injunction at Wednesday’s High Court hearing in London.

Mr Justice Singh ruled that the order could be changed, allowing them to stay and change the layout of caravans and mobile homes, sheds and fencing despite strong objections by Basildon Council.

A council spokesman said: ‘ The time spent dealing with the defendants meant that there was insufficient court time available for the council’s own applications to be heard.’ The earliest the council can present its application is June 23.

‘A mockery of the system’