Dale Farm
| Dale Farm | |
|---|---|
 Dale Farm Entrance, scaffolding and "We won't go" sign |
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 Dale Farm
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| Dale Farm shown within Essex | |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | BILLERICAY |
| Postcode district | CM11 2 |
| Dialling code | 01268 |
| Police | Essex |
| Fire | Essex |
| Ambulance | East of England |
| EU Parliament | East of England |
| UK Parliament | |
Dale Farm is a plot of land situated on Oak Lane in Crays Hill, Essex, United Kingdom, and until October 2011, was the site of one of the largest Traveller concentrations in the UK, at its height housing over 1,000 people, along with the adjacent Oak Land site. Although Basildon District Council had granted permission for the site to be used by small number of Traveller families, no planning permission was given for the expansion of the site into land located within the Green Belt.
The establishment of the illegal plots led to Basildon District Council conducting a ten-year legal battle in the High Court to gain a clearance order to evict the Travellers from Dale Farm. The decision to bring in police officers to remove some activists and residents from the site, in order to give safe access to the contracted bailiffs, gained international press coverage, with the overall eviction costing the Council £4.8 million. Since its clearance, the site has left mostly derelict and overgrown by natural vegetation.
Dale Farm is a six acre plot of land on Oak Lane, near the A127 Southend Arterial road. Dale Farm has been subject to Green Belt controls since 1982. Next to the Dale Farm site there is an authorised Travellers' site known as Oak Lane. This has Council planning permission, and provides 34 legal pitches.
Dale Farm cottage was leased to Ray Bocking, a scrap metal dealer in the early 1960s. Land in the north-east corner was used as a scrap yard without planning permission until 2001.
As a site for Travellers, Dale Farm was started in the 1980s when a planning appeal was won by two families against Basildon District Council on the southern end of the site, with the help of a professor of land management, Robert Home. Prof. Home stated that
"I was first involved when two Gypsy families wanted planning permission for single family plots down Oak Road and we fought it against Basildon Council and we were successful... there were houses down this part of Crays Hill that were actually in the greenbelt, small rural businesses here, then the Gypsy caravans came in. But there had always been Gypsy caravans in and around Basildon."
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Wikipedia