Bishop Thomas McMahon, Catholic Bishop of Brentwood, and Bishop Laurie Green from the Anglican Diocese of Bradwell, paid a pastoral visit to the Dale Farm Travellers’ site near Basildon in Essex last week. The threat of eviction is hanging over half the site and the two Bishops were keen to talk to residents about their situation. While they were there, they prayed with the bereaved family of John Flynn, a leading campaigner in the battle to remain at the site, who died recently.
Prior to the visit, the two churchmen toured the local Crays Hill Primary School, which is attended by many of the Traveller children. The Bishops, who were very impressed by the commitment and enthusiasm of staff at the school, talked to some of the children and listened to them read.
[blockquote]the council has said bailiffs will begin the £18million eviction. While the families bought the land – an old scrap metal site – more than ten years ago, the local council says it is designated as agricultural – not residential. They say they will bulldoze the chalets, caravans, shrines and flower beds, if the families refuse to move them. The families are refusing to move, because they say they have nowhere to go. [/blockquote]
It’s their own land that they are being evicted from because of zoning. Why not save the £18million and change the zoning?
This isn’t about zoning. This is a ‘Gypsy Removal Operation’ where removal is defined as “Go somewhere else. Anywhere else as long as it isn’t here.” It’s about collapsed housing prices, and crime, and fear, and all the tensions that naturally occur between a settled community and a transient community on its doorstep.
carl
It’s the old NIMBY “Not In My Back Yard” syndrome, and it’s the same here on our side of the Pond.
I concur with all the above. Its a tendency we also struggle with down under.