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Actress Vanessa Redgrave has condemned the forcible removal of 90 families from Britain’s biggest traveller settlement as “illegal” and against their human rights.
The political activist, 74, yesterday visited the Dale Farm campsite, in Essex, and met people being evicted from the settlement in the next 24 hours.
Redgrave, a Unicef goodwill ambassador, said: “I am certain that the eviction of the Dale Farm traveller families is illegal under international, mandatory, human rights conventions. I am appalled that such an eviction can be upheld by our government.”
But Basildon council insisted the visit “changed nothing”.
A spokeswoman said: “The deadline is still midnight today.”
The travellers have been fighting removal from the unauthorised green belt site for the past six years.
A camp was set up at the site over the weekend made up of 150 international supporters to protest against the eviction.
Redgrave warned “lives would be ruined” if inhabitants of the camp were evicted as threatened.
The eviction notice was served on 52 unauthorised plots following a six-year planning row, and preparation has begun for a multi-million pound police operation to clear the site next month.
“It’s a day on which I have great hope that this strong, wise, warm and gentle community will have their rights protected and will not have their rights disintegrated,” said the Oscar-winning actress.
“Communities up and down this country have been decimated and destroyed but there still are some communities that want to stay together and Dale Farm is one of those. “The whole situation is really about planning. There’s no crime that has been committed,” Redgrave added.
A portion of the farm, which is owned by the traveller community, has no planning authorisation, and the community claims all the area’s authorised pitches are full.