Dale Farm travellers ‘in line to makes millions’
TRAVELLERS responsible for turning a green belt site into Europe’s largest illegal camp could make millions from a developer looking to build homes there.
More than 1,000 travellers lived on Dale Farm at one point and eventually had to be removed by police and bailiffs in a major operation.
The eviction cost Basildon council in Essex £4.3million, while Essex Police spent £2.4million – which hasn’t been recovered.
Developers Land Group, which wants to build 500 homes, has offered to pay off legal charges the council has on the land – these prevent it being sold until the council has been paid. But the developers would also pay the travellers, who still own the sixacre plot. Each acre could be worth up to £1.5million.
The issue has divided councillors, with some arguing that a deal would return millions of pounds at a time when resources are stretched. Others say it would mean ‘rewarding law breakers’. Locals were furious at the plan, saying the key to winning the tenyear legal battle to evict the travellers from the site in the village of Crays Hill was to have it recognised as green belt land.
One, who asked not to be named, said: ‘Even considering the plans is a total betrayal of that.’
Around 30 legal traveller plots existed in Crays Hill for decades before gipsy Richard Sheridan bought neighbouring land. It was divided into 51 plots and sold, leading to travellers laying foundations and routeing water and electricity to static caravans and other dwellings from 2001 despite having no planning permission.
It was a decade before the travellers exhausted legal moves to stay there. More than 100 police carrying riot shields helped to clear the area in October 2011. But up to 40 travellers, who paid between £5,000 and £40,000 for a plot, still own land at the site, according to the Sunday Express.
A council spokesman said: ‘Land Group has claimed that part of their strategy would be to redevelop the site and pay back the land charges.’ Land Group did not respond to requests for comment.
‘Police carrying riot shields’