An outraged James Cleverly has accused travellers of 'gaming the system' after they started building an 'illegal' camp in an idyllic village over the May bank holiday weekend. An army of workers descended on a four-acre wildlife haven in the historic hamlet of Willows Green, near Felsted, Essex, within hours of the local district council closing its doors for the Bank Holiday weekend on Friday.
About 30 vehicles, including cars, vans and several diggers, were brought onto the field under the cover of darkness in the Conservative MP's constituency. Vegetation was ripped up to prepare the ground for a hardcore and tarmac base. Today, aerial photos showed fences already installed as diggers continued to lay rubble.
The Conservative MP yesterday was seen walking in the field near the site and posted a video on Facebook to demand that action be taken. 'This is why we have got to take action to make sure that building work like this, taking place outside office hours, clearly seeking to game the system, that we are able to take decisive and quick action,' he said. 'Because the local community here knows that this is going to be disruptive to them, and anyone who has tried to get a builder to start work after hours on a Friday on a bank holiday weekend will know that there's something not right about this.'
It came just hours after Mr Cleverly suggested there was 'two-tier justice' when it came to applying rules and laws to travellers. In an earlier video, he said 'we often see situations where they [travellers] move onto land that they own and without lawyers, without planning applications, they just build, build, build'. He added: 'No one else would be allowed to do so. And when the authorities try to take action, whether it be the council or the police they're accused of racism to try and deter them from doing the right thing. A system designed to protect people is being weaponised to allow them to do the wrong thing.'
The field being unlawfully developed was sold by a farmer to a real estate company for £125,000 a year ago. Since then, it is believed to have been marketed as about ten smaller plots, with fears that some had been purchased by members of the travelling community. Using floodlights and generators, several men worked through the night to construct over the pristine countryside.
Residents, whose homes in the picturesque hamlet will overlook one side of the site saw work begin and awoke to see it continuing. One man in his 60s said: 'The council was warned this was on the cards but just sat back and waited for it to happen. The field was swamped with vehicles, noise and lights all through the night. No doubt by the time the council reopens on Tuesday there will be a fully-fledged caravan park opposite our homes.'
There had been criticism ahead of the weekend that the district council took no preemptive measures, such as placing what is known as an Article Four Directive, which bans any usually permitted development such as putting up fences, on the land, after it heard of the plan to concrete the field. Others said it could have tried to obtain an emergency injunction banning any development, so if work started it would be a criminal offence. This was what Basildon Council did in 2006 when it secured a High Court injunction on land at Kennel Lane, near Billericay, before any development started after it received information that the land had been bought by travellers from Dale Farm. The green belt site was never subject to any unauthorised development after the injunction was secured.
Yet, on Thursday, when the Daily Mail asked Uttlesford Council if it had any such plans in place, or if enforcement officers would be on standby, with an emergency hotline for residents to call if they saw any suspicious activity, a spokesperson just urged residents to use the normal online reporting system and said the authority could not act until any development started.
One resident said they had been oblivious to anything being about to happen and that neither the district or parish council had warned them or asked them to look out for suspicious activity. She said: 'The first we knew of it was last night when they just turned up. They have made a new access road by ripping out an ancient hedgerow and filling in the ditch with rubble. This morning the road was blocked by six lorries containing rubble and pallets. There are bulldozers and diggers on site, it is a huge operation. It is very frightening and we do not know what to do, it was a complete shock and we need to hear of some action from Uttlesford Council.'
An insider, who has assisted the traveller community in winning retrospective planning permission, said the recent wave of development was in part caused by some travellers renting out part or all of their sites to migrants and homeless people, a phenomenon recently reported on by the Daily Mail. He said: 'There is not enough housing for anyone anymore so some travellers are renting out their land to non travellers and then moving off and building new sites. This cycle will keep being repeated while there is a housing crisis across the country.'
An Uttlesford Council spokesperson said on Thursday: 'We are aware of local concerns regarding the land, however, at this stage no breach of planning control has occurred. The site is not subject to an injunction or Article 4 Direction. Planning enforcement is a reactive service - this means the council can only take formal action once a breach has taken place. It cannot act before a breach has occurred. Should unauthorised development occur, we will respond in accordance with our planning enforcement plan.' The council has been contacted for comment again after the work started.
The Felsted parish is steeped in history and boasts a top private school once attended by Oliver Cromwell's sons. Felsted School was founded in 1564 by Richard Rich, the first Baron Rich, who served as Lord Chancellor of England during the reign of King Edward VI from 1547 to 1551. All four of Oliver Cromwell's sons attended and in more recent years, the school has educated several top cricketers, including England internationals Derek Pringle, Nick Knight, John Stephenson, and Jordan Cox, plus England rugby union player Max Malins.
Bank Holiday weekend developments are a modus operandi that has been used by some members of the travelling community at various sites across the country over the past three decades. Military-style operations, like the one seen last night, usually commence once the local district council's offices close on the Friday, before a retrospective planning application, for the work already completed, is handed to the authority when it reopens. Three councils across the south east were left taking legal action after the Easter bank holiday weekend after different traveller groups set up new unauthorised sites in Surrey, Kent and Hertfordshire.
