Dale Farm: Traveller sites clear-up cost council £4m

Campaigners tried to stop the Dale Farm evictions in 2011

The clearance of illegal traveller sites cost a council more than £4m, papers have revealed.

Basildon Borough Council is seeking to recover £4.18m for the clearance of illegal camps at Dale Farm and Hovefields in 2010 and 2011.

It chose not to pursue the debt at the time because it did not know where the landowners were, a report claims.

The council has since placed charges on plots in a bid to recoup the money. About £2,000 has been recovered so far.

The report to the performance scrutiny committee, which will be discussed by councillors at a meeting on Wednesday, said there were "a number of reasons" the debt was not chased, including "lack of information about landowners' whereabouts" and "the likelihood of being able to recover the debt through other means".

In addition to 40 legal pitches, there were around 80 illegal pitches at Dale Farm

It is believed 400 people were living on illegal sites in Basildon in 2011.

The eviction of 80 families from illegally-built homes at Dale Farm led to 15 police officers being injured and 45 arrests being made.

Committee chairman, councillor Malcolm Buckley said: "We were of the view that the money should be recovered wherever possible, now we do acknowledge sometimes some money is irrecoverable but that's the reason why we ask for charges to be put onto the various pieces of land.

"The total bill from memory was about £6m, including police contributions, and the whole point is to recover as much of that as we can.

"But even thought the cost was enormous it was important to establish the principle of saying actually development in the greenbelt should not be happening without planning consent, which is what happened at Dale Farm and Hovefields."

There were 45 arrests made during the evictions from Dale Farm in 2011

Mr Buckley said he had heard rumours that some plots had changed hands for cash and said this could mean a "nasty shock" for the new owners when the council asked for repayment.

He added he thought proposals in the Basildon Local Plan to make some of the tolerated traveller pitches legal would be "rewarding lawbreakers".