BELT LAND GRAB
rejected by a council it can take years of appeals before a final decision is reached.
It took a decade before bailiffs could be sent in to clear Dale Farm.
Work started at Hovefields late in the night when a planning application was submitted online to the council by an agent in November.
Basildon Council accompanied by police served stop notices on Friday, November 27, in the hope it would prevent further development.
The same day it was granted an emergency court hearing, when an interim injunction was served, but work on the site has slowly continued, according to residents.
Police were alerted after threats were made to locals, including one family who claim some of their land was built upon.
One resident, who would not be named, said work started at about midnight when people turned up on the site and started plotting up the pitches.
He added: “From about 6am there were lorries delivering hardcore to form the bases of the pitches. They hit the overhead cables and we were left with no power to the house. It is just an ongoing nightmare.
“The council has taken action, but it is too late as usual and they have carried on, but just at a slower rate with smaller lorries. If it carries on this could be as big as Dale Farm.”
A resident of Norton Heath, who also would not be named, said: “It started here at 6am too.there was a rumour travellers bought the land a year ago, but this development with lorries going in and out came out of the blue.
“It’s a tiny place that can’t take this scale of development.”
In a planning statement to Epping Forest Council, planning agent Peter Brownjohn accepted the site was “inappropriate green belt development”. But he argued the council has not met its target for the number of required official sites, so it should be approved.
He said: “It is considered that this unmet need is a significant weight in favour of a grant of planning permission on, at the very least, a temporary basis.”
A traveller with links to Hovefields said: “You can’t blame them for how they went about it, because if you put in for planning on a piece of ground it gets refused.
“Until councils get their act together and provide proper sites we can stay on you are going to see this happening on bits of ground up and down the country.”
Epping Forest Council did not issue any stop notices and went to the High Court for an injunction in the week after the development, which was also granted.
The council said: “The decision to go straight for an injunction was because our legal team feel it has a higher level of redress than a stop notice so will be more effective.”
Meanwhile, travellers remain on the site while the planning application is being considered.
‘Tiny place cannot take development’