Today (3/10/11) Britain's High Court ruled on the matter of the enforcement notices issued by Basildon Council to allow the eviction of the Dale Farm traveller site. The full judgement has yet to be published but the short version is that Basildon Council can remove all but three of the caravans along all of what are known as hard standings - basically concrete bases for caravans - that were added to the site after the travellers brought it. However they cannot remove any of the hard standings that were laid while the site was a scrap yard. Nor can they remove any of the permanent buildings, walls or gates on the site because the Council didn't include them on the enforcement notices. Therefore the site cannot be returned to a greenbelt site.
However the injunction against eviction remains in force until the travellers applications for Judaical Review have been heard with the first hearing taking place tomorrow (4/10/11). As Basildon Council cannot achieve their legally stated objective of evicting in order to return the site to greenbelt and Basildon Council have been shown to selectively enforce planning legislation on the basis of race the travellers have a good chance of being granted that review.
However the Judge hearing the case, Mr Justice Ousely, previously granted Basildon Council permission to evict the nearby Hovesfeild travellers site so it could be returned to greenbelt only for Basildon Council to turn it into a rubbish tip. So I think we're once again likely to see the difference between what the law says should happen and what a Judge chooses to do.
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