travellers

Two appeals in the area at nearby sites have led to one yard on Cranfield Road given a five-year allowance for residential use, and three other sites, on Gypsy Hill, have won four years each.

Dale Farm, near Basildon, is the largest travellers' community in Britain, the home of approximately 600 residents living in 86 homes. Virtually a village, with chalets, mobile-homes and brick-walled gardens, Dale Farm's residents have erected barbed-wire, scaffolding and multiple steel gates because they say they expect to wake up any day now to find themselves under siege.

In Ireland if a scapegoat is needed all too often Travellers are made to fit the bill.