ANTI-EVICTION VIGIL in support of Dale Farm families

[Mark]

please circulate far & wide, amongst friends and contacts:

ANTI-EVICTION VIGIL
OUTSIDE WESTMINSTER
BRIEFING ON GYPSY POLICY

 Kathleen McCarthy, on behalf of mothers at Dale Farm, is asking everyone
who can to join the vigil outside the Westminster Briefing on PLANNING &
ENFORCEMENT OF GYPSY SITES.

This is a meeting, largely for local council people, at which new
Government policy is to be exolained. It's taking place next Thursday, l8
May.

 Cliff Codona, chair of the UK Forum, Catherine Beard, European Forum
delegate, Joe Jones, of Gypsy & Traveller Affairs, Bridie Jones,
co-ordinator of ITM 2006, will be participating inside.

 People are needed for the vigil outside to hold up posters and hand out
the DALE FARM PREGNANT MOTHERS PLEA
(see below)

 Please email us if you can take part!

 The location is:

                One Whitehall Place
                Whitehall
                London SW1A 2HD
                phone:  0870 333 9123

People will be going in between 9.30 am and 10.30 am. The briefing starts
at 10.45.

There's to be a networking lunch (for those who have invitations) ending
at 2pm.

Kathleen will be coming with Nora Egan and others (who will be staying
outside) bringing a Dale Farm banner and flyers. They want all the support
they can get.

Grattan
01206 523528


DALE FARM PREGNANT MOTHERS PLEA:
STOP ETHNIC-CLEANSING
SAVE OUR HOMES

OPEN LETTER TO RUTH KELLY

Dear Miss Kelly,

We¹re 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.

I¹m Kathleen McCarthy, a governor at Crays Hill Primary School and
Chair of Dale Farm residents committee, and I¹m 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 can¹t 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 (we¹ve 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  at:  dale.farm at ntlworld.com

This campaign is suppported by the UK Gypsy, Traveller and Roma  Forum,
affiliated 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.