Yes it's on green belt, but it's actually built on the site of a former scrap yard, and probably looks a lot more in keeping with the local environment than the scrapyard did.

Why didn't the travellers apply for planning permission? Because the vast majority of planning applications from travellers are turned down.

The point is that these people are being turned off their site for no reason other than a bureaucratic nicety. I've only seen Dale Farm on tv, but it looks extremely clean and well laid out and organised. It might have broken the letter of the green belt regulations, but it certainly hasn't breached their spirit.

But those who snigger and sneer at diddycoys might pause to wonder where they are supposed to go once they've been evicted. What tiny corner of this splendid isle of ours is left where they can set up home without offending the planning laws and local opinion? Before you try and answer that one, please remember that official traveller sites are already woefully under-resourced and cannot accommodate anything like the numbers of families who need them.

"The hard eyed men who guard the roads
They bid us choose our way.
And yet they will not let us go.
Nor will they let us stay." Ewan MacColl.

Someone said to me the other night, travellerphobia is about the last form of racism that is still socially acceptable. One day we'll kill that off too.

And before I forget, alterations to the planning regulations will not make it easier for travellers to gain planning permission. It will simply make it easier for councils to reject them, and for magistrates to evict them.

One final point. The landlord of the pub at the back of me put up some jumberellas a couple of years ago. "you can't do that", objected the local residents. "You should have sought planning permission first. Moreover they will exacerbate problems with the pub about which we are already complaining."

The brewery sought retrospective planning permission for the jumberellas and got it, despite local opposition.

Seems to me there's one law for the rich and powerful, and another for the dispossessed.