A traveller site in Essex, originally approved for just 50 caravans half a century ago, has ballooned into a sprawling encampment now thought to accommodate more than 1,500 residents largely including asylum seekers.
Buckles Lane in South Ockendon was once tranquil green-belt land where horses roamed, but today is packed with hundreds of static homes, many in poor condition, occupied by migrant workers and individuals with criminal connections.
Angry residents are pressing Thurrock Council to take enforcement action against travelling community members profiting from Britain's housing shortage, by subletting their caravans to foreign labourers and criminal organisations.
The exact population remains unknown, as the site is secured by metal gates, guard dogs, surveillance cameras and warning signs deterring outsiders.
Neighbouring residents fear the deteriorating conditions could trigger a serious incident.
"We are sitting on a ticking time-bomb here," nearby resident Kathleen Judge told The Sun.
"Overcrowding has become a major problem and that worries me because lack of sanitation spreads diseases."
The 77-year-old expressed concern about rising crime, adding: "I'm not saying all the migrants are a problem, the majority are irrelevant, but if one in 100 comes for devious reasons then that's one too many."
Buckles Lane has ballooned into a sprawling encampment of migrant workers
|THURROCK COUNCIL
A young mother, too frightened to give her name, revealed she had resigned from teaching at a nearby primary school because classrooms had become unmanageable.
"This whole area is overrun with migrants and that made it impossible for me to control the classroom," she said.
Other residents described sewage from overflowing cesspits running down the road, noting that expensive vehicles including Porsches and Lamborghinis regularly enter and exit the site.
Caravan owners are capitalising on the UK's housing crisis by letting units to low-paid workers, with some beds occupied by different people during the same day to accommodate shift patterns.
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Advertisements on property websites show rents ranging from £120 to £170 weekly for basic static caravans.
A whistleblower, speaking anonymously for fear of reprisals, claimed a shared room costs approximately £320 monthly, paid fortnightly in cash.
"The site has grown and grown and has been illegally expanded several times," he said, alleging the council is avoiding action to escape responsibility for rehousing displaced travellers.
The pitches were originally designated exclusively for traveller and travelling showmen communities, yet illicit rental arrangements have emerged despite longstanding claims of insufficient sites for these groups.
Thomas McKenna, 60, received a 16-year prison sentence in February after distributing weapons to a criminal network from the site
|MET POLICE
Some caravans are believed to house organised criminals, including those linked to Romanian prostitution networks and county-lines drug operations seeking discreet locations.
In November 2024, armed officers raided the site and uncovered firearms and explosives in one caravan, where a lorry driver had been converting blank-firing weapons into lethal guns while stockpiling gunpowder for a planned "race war".
Thomas McKenna, 60, received a 16-year prison sentence in February after distributing weapons to a criminal network that included Faisal Razzaq, the getaway driver in PC Sharon Beshenivsky's fatal shooting in 2005.
Craig Phillips, another Buckles Lane resident, was imprisoned for five years and 10 months in 2022 for Class A drug conspiracy.