Police begin to clear UK's biggest travellers' site

Police in riot gear began to clear Britain's biggest illegal travellers' site on Wednesday, heralding the end of a decade-long battle and leaving residents there angry at their "violent" treatment.

Officers broke down fences at the rear of the Dale Farm site in Essex while bailiffs began to smash low-rise brick walls with sledgehammers at its entrance, with diggers at the ready.

The eviction of about 400 travellers near Basildon marks the climax of one of Britain's most contentious and bitter planning rows in recent years.

Some residents and their supporters told the media on Wednesday they would resist eviction from the six-acre site "until the end".

A few protesters wearing balaclavas and hoods threw missiles, including rocks and liquids, at the police from behind flimsy wooden barricades and rubber rings while flames and thick smoke went up from a burning caravan.

Essex Police said taser guns had been used against two protesters because there had been a serious breach of the peace, and one person had been arrested so far.

They said the decision for police to intervene followed intelligence that violence was likely. Television footage showed one person being carried on a stretcher across a field by paramedics.

Residents on the site criticised police tactics.

"The only premeditated violence has come from the police -- they knew exactly what they were doing when they started beating and tasering people," said Mary Sheridan, a Dale Farm resident who is now staying on a relative's lawful plot.

The site's residents had won a temporary reprieve last month when the High Court issued an injunction stopping officials from clearing the land, but their battle came to an end when they lost a final legal hearing last week.

Travellers say the clearance is a breach of their human rights, targeting a vulnerable group whose choice of lifestyle does not fit in with the mainstream.

The local council argues it is a planning dispute, with the travellers breaking the law by illegally building on the green belt, the band of countryside around London intended to stop urban sprawl.

Many locals had complained of litter and noise from the site. Basildon council said it had tried to find the travellers alternative sites, but talks had been exhausted.

"The pre-meditated and organised scenes of violence that we have already seen with protesters throwing rocks and bricks, threatening police with iron bars and setting fire to a caravan are shocking," council leader Tony Ball said in statement.

"These are utterly disgraceful scenes and demonstrate the fact some so-called supporters were always intent on violence."

Among those who had supported the travellers had been actress Vanessa Redgrave and a United Nations' special rapporteur.

"The memory of Dale Farm will weigh heavily on Britain for generations -- we are being dragged out of the only homes we have in this world," resident Kathleen McCarthy said in a statement from the Dale Farm Solidarity group.