h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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There is a former scrap yard near me that is classified as green belt, not sure if this was done after, or before it was a scrappy!

With Dale Farm the former scrap yard is the legal plots (from what I understand) but they aren't only using the former scrap yard.

ooh I mahy be wrong. How could that happen? Still...

The scrapyard itself was not meant to be there either.

http://www.basildon.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=3976&faqdetailid=4014&inplace=true

http://www.basildon.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=3976&faqdetailid=4017&inplace=true

Thanks Mina, I thought I'd read it somewhere.

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I was having a chat with a friend of mine who works for a housing trust near there, and he's been telling me a few horror stories, such as police refusing to go in to retrieve stolen goods - they had a nearly new trailor with a small digger on it taken and the tracker found it on the site. Locals have had windows facing the site boarded up because they are smashed, and ever time they are repaired, they're smashed again, and he says his housing trust don't feel it would be fair on other residents to offer housing - they have had some applications so some of them seem to have got it into their heads they are going to have to move.

Lovely - http://t.co/whyXRTv

"A representative of families living on an illegal traveller site in Essex said they would leave if they were paid £6m for their land, a council has said."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-14804705

>>Just in case anyone's in any doubt that this is about money & greed.<< SWL

yeah, and every other Brit who makes decisions based on the resale value of land is only motivated by money and greed.


Interesting that Tiggy advocated a form of genocide earlier.

The point is kea, this lot have been wittering about ancient lifestyles, rights to roam etc. Some of their supporters are raving about ethnic cleansing and racism. It's nothing of the sort - it's exactly as Whisky described it earlier and we have planning laws to prevent just this kind of abuse.

I agree there are significant legal issues here, but to say that there are no ethnicity issues is just bizarre. Are you saying that there is no such thing as gypsies, that they're just a bunch of regular Brits trying it on? It seems pretty obvious from this distance that this is a distinct cultural/ethnic group within the UK, but maybe I am missing something.

Besides, I though part of the problem was that travelling has become more difficult in recent decades and there are structural reasons for why gypsies have moved into permanent settlements.


I find the idea that gypsies shouldn't be wealthy quite strange too to be honest.

The council are not trying to move on *all* Irish travellers. Just the ones living illegally. And I believe they are clearing the site because the travellers refuse to do it. That will make some of them homeless yes, but they've have years to organise somewhere.

So it's not a case of clearing a load of gypsies, or they'd all be being cleared away. Just because people happen to be of a certain group, doesn't mean they are being targetted because of the group they belong to.

It's hard to be sympathetic to people who don't live with this group in their own backyard and so want them to be left alone. Councils make land owners clear illegal buildings off their own land a fair amount. This is just making news because the land owners are making a bit song and dance about it!

Ethnicity has nothing to do with this!!

Nothing.

Whatsoever.

Are you saying we should have different laws for different ethnicities? Because that is exactly what these travellers are trying to say.

And don't dignify them with the term "Gypsies". Real Gypsies are Eastern European/Northern Indian and have been hounded and persecuted throughout Europe. The Nazis didn't think they were worth using in work camps, choosing to shoot them on sight or send them straight to the death camps. For this lot of Irish Travellers to try to wrap themselves in the Gypsy flag is pretty repellent really.

>>Are you saying we should have different laws for different ethnicities?

Depends. In NZ it's normal for Maori to be considered separately from non-Maori because the Crown has a treaty with them. So in principle I think there are times when it makes sense to look at the needs of different peoples separately.

In the case of the gypsies, I don't know enough about the situation to have an opinion about what the solution is, but I do know enough to know that denying that they are an ethnic group is going to cause more problems.

I'm still not clear though - I understand you think ethnicity is irrelevant to this discussion, but do you think this is a distinct ethnic group or not?


'Real Gypsies'.... when we start talking in terms of ethnic groups we like and those we don't we're in serious trouble.

Well in this country, we have one law for all (no giggling at the back). How you do things in the colonies is your affair

<<'Real Gypsies'.... when we start talking in terms of ethnic groups we like and those we don't we're in serious trouble>>

They're not Gypsies! They're Irish Travellers - a group recognised in Britain (but not Ireland) as a distinct ethnic group. It's a bit like a bunch of white kids in Brixton getting dreadlocks and calling themselves Jamaican, patently false and insulting to Jamaicans.

I neither like nor dislike Irish Travellers, Gypsies or Mongolian bloomin' Tree Frogs - it's utterly irrelevant to the issue of people breaking the law!

>>Well in this country, we have one law for all (no giggling at the back).

And how's that working out? (I'm fairly sure that NZ is considered to be one of the better countries at managing race relations).

i think you will find the site has planning consent for 40 dwellings

its the other 80 illegaly sited dwellings that the council want to remove

its like having a housing development of around a dozen houses and then building a shanty town in the gardens, because you are friends or family of the rsidents

a blatant breach of planning regulations, with the residents playing the race card to justify their illegality

You'd think in a civilised country like 'Britain' that is all into multiculturalism that more allowance could be made for the travellers way of life.

And of course even where settled they are 'other'. In Peckham there is an area set aside for their caravans...a fairly grotty concreted area. But I'm pleased its there.

The 'other' will always be seen as the biggest threat to the status quo. Outside normal rules. just by its very existence its seen as a threat.

when i was a kid there were 2 types of travellers

gypsies and tinkers (one of my grandfathers perents came from gypsy stock)

when did the irish travelling comunity stop being known as tinkers??