Did anyone else see this?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0170cm1/Panorama_Dale_Farm_The_Big_Eviction/
I thought some of it was pretty shocking. Do you know, they sent in 150 riot police. They're supposed to first send the bailiffs with the police there to back them up if necessary. Not send in riot police like it's the start of world war three. The bailiffs were nowhere in sight. They even started demolishing part of the site which was legally allowed to remain. It all looked pretty terrifying and totally over the top.
Also, all this stuff about green belts to justify the evictions, before the travellers arrived part of the site was a massive breakers yard, hardly pristine, although no-one wanted to admit this. Certainly their nearest neighbour (with his attacks of arson and raw sewage) was only interested in the price of his house being affected by the nearby riffraff.
Anyway you can have your planning rules and say that everyone must abide by them if you want. But if there aren't enough officially provided places for people to stay and you tell them to move on, where were they supposed to go when they left the site? They'll just be a 'problem' somewhere else. The council's solution was that they could all have social housing. Like if you don't want to live like us then tough.
Anyway. Watch it and be appalled by the police. Again. Pretty depressing.
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