Timeline: Dale Farm evictions

Officers were met with resistance and there were confrontations with masked protesters

1970s

Basildon Council gives planning permission to 40 English Romany families to live beside a scrapyard.

1996

Scrapyard owner Ray Bocking, denied permission to carry on his business, sells Dale Farm to an Irish travelling family for £122,000.

2001

A growing number of families move in and various planning breaches are reported, but no action is taken by Basildon Council.

2005, May

Travellers are ordered to leave Dale Farm after a planning inspector declares the development illegal. Basildon Council votes to bring enforcement action, but a travellers' delegation goes to Number 10 Downing Street and a two-year reprieve is granted.

2005, June

Actor and political activist Corin Redgrave suffers a heart attack while speaking at a Basildon Council meeting discussing the future of Dale Farm. He describes travellers as "the most deprived community in the country".

2006

A public inquiry is held. Dale Farm travellers hold a vigil outside Westminster as the government discusses new guidance on Gypsy and traveller sites.

2007

Basildon Council votes to evict 14 families. The Save Dale Farm Campaign appeals for a rethink following a Basildon Council vote to evict 14 families and plans to hire eviction specialists and bulldoze the site.

2008

Travellers celebrate the opening of a new community centre despite continuing court action from Basildon Council to allow the eviction to go ahead.

2009

The Court of Appeal rules that an earlier judgement in the High Court - which quashed Basildon Council's decision to take enforcement action - is flawed. Lord Justice Pill ruled the decision to clear the site is lawful.

2011, March

Basildon Council votes to go ahead with the eviction. The Conservative-run authority is backed by Prime Minister David Cameron, who says it is an illegal development and "those people should move away".

Activists remain chained to the overhead gantry at the site entrance

2011, July

Eviction notices are served by Basildon Council. The council gives residents occupying 51 unauthorised pitches 28 days to vacate the land.

2011, August

The campaign to stop the eviction gathers pace as actress and human rights campaigner Vanessa Redgrave visits Dale Farm. Activists begin to set up "Camp Constant" to help defend travellers. Lawyers fail in a High Court bid to halt the eviction.

2011, 19 September

Bailiffs arrive at the main gate of Dale Farm to start the eviction of up to 80 families living on the unauthorised plot. Later, the residents win a last-minute injunction preventing the council from clearing structures from the site pending a further court hearing.

2011, 21 September

Travellers flee the site amid fears of eviction. A group of travellers claiming to be from Dale Farm relocate to a public park in Luton.

2011, 26 September

Residents win a temporary reprieve in their long-running battle to stay on the site. A judge rules that residents are entitled to an extension of an injunction stopping their evictions until the courts have ruled on the legality of their proposed removal.

2011, 17 October

Residents are refused permission to appeal against a High Court ruling that gave Basildon Council the go-ahead to evict them.

2011, 19 October

Supporters clash with bailiffs and riot police as the planned eviction finally gets under way.