Dale Farm's representative in Brussels Patrick Egan met today (1pm) at the European Parliament with East Anglia MEP Richard Howitt to discuss possible ways to meet the crisis faced by the 90 families on the estate at present under threat of eviction.

Today, some 90 families at Dale Farm, the UK's largest Traveller community, were hand-delivered a final notice of eviction giving families until midnight on August 31 to abandon their homes, or face their entire community being bulldozed.The central government and Basildon Council have set aside over £18m for the eviction battle that could last three weeks. It will be the biggest clearance of its kind involving the ploughing up of 54 separate plots created on a former scrap-yard purchased by the Travellers ten years ago.

By Grattan Puxon
For some residents forced eviction next month could be a death-sentence, representatives from Dale Farm have told the UN in Geneva. President of the Gypsy Council Richard Sheridan, who flew to Geneva on Sunday, said the missionwas a last bid to get the UK to comply with UN requests to call off what would be the biggest clearance operation against an ethnic minority in modern Britain.