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Anger as travellers evicted from 2012 site are given £2m homes
Ellen Widdup17 Feb 2009
GIPSIES evicted from the site of the London Olympics are being given new homes in a gated development - costing the taxpayer £2 million.
Six three-bedroom bungalows, each with a garden and a drive big enough for a caravan, have been built in Millfields Road, Clapton.
Work on the new complex began straight after the traveller families lost a High Court battle against being evicted from their council-owned site in Waterden Crescent, Hackney Wick. Three indoor arenas will be built there to host 2012 events.
However, the new development has angered residents. Patricia Chin, 64, whose terrace home is opposite it, said: "The houses they are building for them are massive. We pay huge sums in council tax but don't get this kind of special treatment. The council even wants to charge us to park outside our homes - while these travellers get their own driveways." Flat-dweller Katrina Gorse, 29, said: "My children have to share a room - but they get all that space. I thought the whole idea of being a traveller was that you lived in a caravan."
A spokesman for the London Development Agency, which is responsible for the new site, said the traveller families were among 450 residents who had to be relocated. "There were no existing sites to accommodate these families so the new travellers' site was selected in consultation with Hackney council," he said. Each family will be charged £104.66-a-week rent plus £91.23 a week to park a caravan on the drive.
Reader views (7)
I live very close to the site where these bungalows have been built. Not one of these travellers are working and each have brand new cars. I live on the top floor of a block of flats with no lift and can no longer manage the stairs. When I enquired about ground floor rehousing I was told I could apply but had not a hope in hells chance of getting anywhere.
- Linda, Sunny Hackney, 21/03/2009 22:19
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Yet another insult to hard-working tax-payers struggling to pay the bills, particularly at this time - who get little or no concessions.
- Marianne, SW France, 18/02/2009 08:40
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I wonder how long it will be before NuLabour will go to the IMF for a Bail out?
- Stan White, leeds, 18/02/2009 07:52
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Seems strange the Irish 'travellers' from waterden crescent site get expensive homes while English romany gypsy families, on nearby clays lane gypsy site, only got a £9,000 relocation fee to another site, effectively on a roundabout surrounded by four roads. Couldn't be reverse racism?
- Helen, norwich, 17/02/2009 16:01
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Surely this comes under the heading of 'You couldn't make it up'.These 'travellers' didn't seem to do much travelling before but now that they have been given
proper homes at public expense what will they call themselves?
- M Wilkinson, London UK, 17/02/2009 14:54
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Well at least someone will benefit from the Olympics ... good luck to them. They probably deserve a break.
- Ben Farrell, London, 17/02/2009 11:25
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Such is the Olympic Legacy. Everyone was quite happy where they were before the vanity project was dreamed up. How to ruin an area and wreck a country financially.
- Michelle, London, 17/02/2009 11:24
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