Basildon District Council has been heavily criticised for its plans to evict Britain’s largest Traveller community at Dale Farm in Crays Hill, Essex. The Council has been accused of “bowing down to local prejudice” against the Traveller community, which maintains that the decision to deny their planning consent has very little to do with preserving the “green belt” land that half the community resides upon. The fact remains that 90 per cent of planning applications from Travellers and Gypsies are refused by councils in the UK, which when compared with the 20 per cent of applications refused to all non-Traveller applicants from July to September 2010, indicates some level of discrimination.
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