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Open Letter: Pregnant Mothers' Appeal
The following Open Letter was recently sent to Ruth Kelly, the British Minister of Local Government by several mothers from the Dale Farm Traveller community in the county of Essex. The British High Court will shortly rule on whether the Travellers can be evicted, as the local council has demanded.
Dear Miss Kelly,
We're very pleased that you have been made Minister responsible for Communities and Local Government. We believe a young woman like yourself will truly listen to us and not let Basildon council bulldoze our homes and drive us out on the road. Everyone is worried is to death about what will happen to our new-born babies if this is allowed to happen.
I'm Kathleen McCarthy, a governor at Crays Hill Primary School and Chair of Dale Farm residents committee, and I'm writing on behalf myself and my children, and six pregnant mothers who have put their names at the end of this letter, as has Nora Egan, who has just had her baby, a bonny little girl.
We can't understand how in this day and age Malcolm Buckley, the Tory head of Basildon Council, against the protests and opposition of all the Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors, could push through a vote to spend nearly three million pounds to destroy our lives, and the lives of our children (we've over a l50 children going to school from here).
But we have to believe it because Buckley has already sent in the bulldozers to break up five homes at Hovefields Drive, not two miles from us. This has only been stopped by a Judge in the High Court through a Judicial Review.
We have a Judicial Review coming up too and this is supported by Trevor Philips and the Commission for Racial Equality. This support is very important to us. On the other hand, we know that the Judicial Review may only delay an eviction.
The only real solution is for us to be granted our planning permission and we have all our Planning Appeals starting on 1 August.
John Prescott did not want to see us evicted with nowhere to go and suggested we be allowed to move to land at Pitsea, owned by English Partnership. We thank him for this. Still, we have say most of us have invested just about all we have in Dale Farm, in our chalets and mobile homes, our yards and our gardens. Our wish is to be permitted to stay where we are; just to be left alone.
Most of the yards at Dale Farm are built on an old scrapyard and industrial sites. We have improved the look of the place, while taking up only very little of greenbelt land, which is next to yards already licensed for mobile-homes. Basildon Labour party says what Buckley wants to do and the public money he wants to spend is "disproportionate" to the small area to be "saved". They say the decision was "racially tainted" in the first place. Our Parish Priest Father John Glynn says its ethnic-cleansing.
Wickford Primary Care Trust has warned that an eviction would mean children and elderly people getting hurt. We fear that a child will be killed.
Mrs.K.McCarthy, Mrs Quilligan, Mrs McCarthy, Mrs Sheridan, Mrs Mary Sheridan, Mrs Brida Sheridan, Mrs Nora Egan
If you would like to support the Save Dale Farm Campaign and sign the petition asking Basildon Council not to evict us, please email Mrs. McCarthy.
This campaign is supported by the UK Gypsy, Traveller and Roma Forum, linked to the European Roma and Travellers Forum in Strasbourg; the Forum includes the National Travellers Action Group, UK Association of Gypsy Women, Gypsy & Traveller Affairs, Irish Travellers Movement 2006, Derby Gypsy Liaison Group, Thames Valley Gypsy Association, Trans-European Roma Federation, Roma Opre and others.
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