Dale Farm – what to do? (From Bucks Free Press)
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The perfect wife and mother, Rebecca runs a home, a village magazine and is working on her novel. She does not visit the gym or jog but is in amazingly good shape. She enjoys photography, playing the piano and arguing with the TV. She lives in Amersham with her husband and youngest child (aged nine). Her eldest, now 26, lives and works in Buckinghamshire.
Dale Farm – what to do?
4:30pm Thursday 20th October 2011
I am still astounded that a fight like this can have gone on for 10 years. To me, the key words are ‘illegal site’. Can you argue with that?
At a time when MPs are thinking of abolishing the Human Rights Act citing illegal immigrants who’ve argued for the right to family life to avoid proper punishment, these travellers are doing much the same.
And don’t travellers travel? Why do they want to stay? One traveller says she wants everyone to stay another 30 years.
In truth I commend the fact that they want their community to stay together. Many of us live in fragmented, meaningless clusters, independent of our neighbours and remote from our family I’m aware that locals resent those on the site. I do wonder what their main cause for concern is.
Are the travellers renting the land? Are they part of the mainstream community? If they’re not, does that mean they should go? Should we try to oust anyone who doesn’t live as ‘we’ do? (Right, off I go then…) Looking at the area on Google maps, I can see an area of flat, tired land with some solid houses and lots of vans and motorhomes. Is this the site? It doesn’t look much different to any industrial park.
Most the surrounding area is green and pretty. This looks a mess. And liberal and tolerant as I want to be, I know I wouldn’t fancy living next to this either. Why? Because individuals who don’t loosely accept some shared community values make difficult neighbours.
And because I think about things like waste, sanitation and toilets. What’s the situation? Portaloos? Public conveniences? Or something else?
Some children attend school and part of me thinks that here’s a group of people who want services taxpayers fund but who will battle for a decade to continue not contributing. Or am I misguided? Do they contribute?
I can see both sides. The travellers are settled (?); the residents are fed up.
The law isn’t clear about anything it seems – after ten years.
I agree that there should be provision made for travellers to stay places for short periods in peace – we embrace every other culture in this country, why not Romany gypsies?
This raises a larger question about newcomers to the country. How much should anyone adapt, integrate, accept the host’s culture, laws and social rules?
I don’t know the answer. Perhaps it's a step towards the hailed Big Society. But I think the Dale Farm calamity should instigate some serious debate about what constitutes society and how communities are formed and sustained.
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Comments(19)
Melanie1
says...
7:57pm Thu 20 Oct 11
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They knew that more than half that site did not have planning permission and yet settled there and built an infrastructure so that they weren't travelling...
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I do feel some sympathy for them BUT it was their choice to set up home illegally and I would not want to live next door to them. I read in the paper, a few years ago, about one of their neighbours whose house is worth virtually nothing, has had numerous break ins and had to have CCTV installed, had been shot at, had excrement thrown over his fence and everytime he sets foot in his back garden has abuse shouted at him. If they had behaved in a more civilised manner, perhaps the neighbours wouldn't have continued to argue that they should travel.
Rebecca Leon
says...
9:01am Fri 21 Oct 11
:
Apologies.
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Citizens should surely try to enhance the place they inhabit. That a group causes house prices to plummet and neighbours to be abused can't surely hold up in any civilised court.
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As for the protesters... Are they part of the traveller's community? Or just a whole other group making their own entertainment?
Melanie1
says...
1:56pm Fri 21 Oct 11
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It would appear from news articles that most of them are professional protestors who turn up to anything in the hope that it will get ugly and they will have an excuse to throw bottles and rocks at police.
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One can only wonder how they can afford to not work? Possibly they are still selling their loot from the riots a couple of months ago, have wealthy parents who bankroll them or they are claiming a whole wealth of benefits?
Rebecca Leon
says...
3:37pm Fri 21 Oct 11
:
Do you think it's who you know not what you know to get into that line of work???
Melanie1
says...
6:13pm Fri 21 Oct 11
Rebecca Leon
says...
7:56pm Fri 21 Oct 11
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Courtesy of - well - working people - taxpayers...
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On the other hand, what do the travellers live on? How do they make a living?
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I admit I don't know enough about them.
Rebecca Leon
says...
7:57pm Fri 21 Oct 11
:
Courtesy of - well - working people - taxpayers...
:
On the other hand, what do the travellers live on? How do they make a living?
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I admit I don't know enough about them.
demoness the second
says...
7:01am Sat 22 Oct 11
And yes, they do live off tax payers sadly.
tom.marlow2
says...
2:15pm Sat 22 Oct 11
We may disagree with a lot of the issues being protested but I think the cost to us as individuals is low. They may be "living off the taxpayer" but they aren't exactly living in mansions, eating at the ritz and driving round in bentleys.
Dale farm and other "travellers" sites are a difficult social problem. If you start life out of the mainstream I suspect its very difficult to get into the mainstream. Hard to get a job without a proper address, hard to rent a property without a job, hard to get social housing without being on some list. You end up being excluded.
And of course if you are a child, constantly being moved on, then you never get much of an education and you become even more excluded from the mainstream.
On the other hand, much as I sympathise, green belt, to me, is inviolable.
I don't know the answer.
Perhaps as a society we should take the problem rather more seriously rather than try and sweep it under the carpet, or as Basildon council are doing, under someone else's carpet
Rebecca Leon
says...
8:15pm Sat 22 Oct 11
:
I think this is how some see them - as downtrodden outsiders that society excludes.
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The traveller culture is not part of 'mainstream' society. They create their own 'laws' and value system.
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i have dealt with them myself and know someone who's worked with them - they really are a distinct culture.
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Since immigrants from abroad do integrate to a degree - or try to - and after a couple of generations we embrace their culture (festivals, food, dress), why haven't we with the travellers? Because they remains apart.
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The gypsy camp is a closed society within another larger society.
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I find this problematic. How should this work? And where does it leave the average resident citizen?
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And on the point about protestors, I agree. We need defiance.
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But... a protestor used to be someone who was passionate about a cause and fought for change.
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If there a 'touring' protestors, is it that they feel strongly about many causes or are they sort of legitimate vandals?
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Someone who destroys property is a criminal. Do they avoid a criminal label just because they claim to be protesting?
tom.marlow2
says...
9:44pm Sat 22 Oct 11
Rebecca Leon
says...
8:56pm Sun 23 Oct 11
:
People aren't always honest when talking to the press.
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They may stay for a while and school their children for a while at those schools - and then move on.
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I once worked in a school with a sizeable number of traveller children and it was a bizarre experience.
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They also had quite a significant impact on the 'resident' children, the school's character and goals.
Rebecca Leon
says...
8:56pm Sun 23 Oct 11
:
People aren't always honest when talking to the press.
:
They may stay for a while and school their children for a while at those schools - and then move on.
:
I once worked in a school with a sizeable number of traveller children and it was a bizarre experience.
:
They also had quite a significant impact on the 'resident' children, the school's character and goals.
Rebecca Leon
says...
7:31pm Mon 24 Oct 11
:
It's not me.
tom.marlow2
says...
10:39pm Mon 24 Oct 11
Rebecca Leon wrote:So we can add lying to the press to their list of faults.
They said that to the press?
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People aren't always honest when talking to the press.
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They may stay for a while and school their children for a while at those schools - and then move on.
:
I once worked in a school with a sizeable number of traveller children and it was a bizarre experience.
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They also had quite a significant impact on the 'resident' children, the school's character and goals.
Thats all right then. Our consciences are clear.
Bookermum
says...
2:46pm Tue 25 Oct 11
Lawrence Linehan
says...
5:15pm Tue 25 Oct 11
J B Blackett
says...
7:02pm Wed 26 Oct 11
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My experience (for what it's worth) is fairly neutral. The family groups tend to gravitate together and have their own histories , laws and rituals even religions which they follow with varying diligence.
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They can tend to live in their own 'bubble' and conflict arises when their bubble bumps into someone else's bubble.
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They don't have an idyllic lifestyle , imo , but neither have I , but I cannot imagine or survive living their way.
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Perhaps they will survive the next World War (like Mad Max) better than most of we 'static' people. (!)
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The perfect wife and mother, Rebecca runs a home, a bad temper and is working on her novel. She enjoys photography, playing the piano and likes almost anything that's out of fashion and uncool. She lives in Amersham with her husband and youngest child (aged ten). Her eldest, now 27, lives and works in Buckinghamshire.
buser says...
7:46pm Thu 20 Oct 11