Just hours after The Daily Mail highlighted the potential danger of illegal development, travelers began converting a wildlife sanctuary into a makeshift caravan park.

An influx of workers quickly occupied the four-acre plot near Felsted in Essex, taking advantage of the local district council’s closure for the Bank Holiday weekend on Friday.

Local residents had previously alerted Uttlesford District Council about the imminent threat to the field, known to be home to protected great crested newts and occasionally visited by rare albino fallow deer. However, the council claimed it was unable to intervene.

Recently, MailOnline reported on the nationwide risk of unauthorized traveler developments, following a surge in illegal caravan sites over the Easter holiday.

In particular, concerns were raised about the field near the historic hamlet of Willows Green, adjacent to Felsted. A local council insider had shared information suggesting that travelers planned to bring in thousands of tons of materials to construct a site during the long weekend.

The residents’ worst fears materialized under the cover of night as approximately 30 vehicles, including cars, vans, and several diggers, descended upon the field. These machines began tearing up the vegetation to lay a base of hardcore and tarmac.

Using floodlights and generators, several men worked through the night to construct over the pristine countryside.

Residents, whose homes in the picturesque hamlet will overlook one side of the site saw work begin and awoke to see it continuing,

Using floodlights and generators several men worked through the night to concrete over the countryside

Protected habitats for great crested newts were bulldozed to make way for a new caravan site

One man in his 60s said: ‘The council was warned this was on the cards but just sat back and waited for it to happen.

‘The field was swamped with vehicles, noise and lights all through the night. No doubt by the time the council reopens on Tuesday there will be a fully-fledged caravan park opposite our homes.’

There had been criticism ahead of the weekend that the district council took no preemptive measures, such as placing what is known as an Article Four Directive, which bans any usually permitted development such as putting up fences, on the land, after it heard of the plan to concrete the field.

Others said it could have tried to obtain an emergency injunction banning any development, so if work started it would be a criminal offence.

This was what Basildon Council did in 2006 when it secured a High Court injunction on land at Kennel Lane, near Billericay, before any development started after it received information that the land had been bought by travellers from Dale Farm.

The green belt site was never subject to any unauthorised development after the injunction was secured.

Yet, on Thursday, when MailOnline asked Uttlesford Council if it had any such plans in place, or if enforcement officers would be on standby, with an emergency hotline for residents to call if they saw any suspicious activity, a spokesperson just urged residents to use the normal online reporting system and said the authority could not act until any development started.

One resident said they had been oblivious to anything being about to happen and that neither the district or parish council had warned them or asked them to look out for suspicious activity.

She said: ‘The first we knew of it was last night when they just turned up. They have made a new access road by ripping out an ancient hedrown and filling in the ditch with rubble.

‘This morning the road was blocked by six lorries containing rubble and pallets. There are bulldozers and diggers on site, it is a huge operation.

‘It is very frightening and we do not know what to do, it was a complete shock and we need to hear of some action from Uttlesford Council.’

An insider, who has assisted the traveller community in winning retrospective planning permission, said the recent wave of development was in part caused by some travellers renting out part or all of their sites to migrants and homeless people, a phenomenon recently reported on by Mailonline.

He said: ‘There is not enough housing for anyone anymore so some travellers are renting out their land to non travellers and then moving off and building new sites. This cycle will keep being repeated while there is a housing crisis across the country.’

An Uttlesford Council spokesperson said on Thursday: ‘We are aware of local concerns regarding the land, however, at this stage no breach of planning control has occurred. The site is not subject to an injunction or Article 4 Direction.

Villagers expressed outrage after Uttlesford District Council failed to secure a preemptive emergency legal injunction

‘Planning enforcement is a reactive service – this means the council can only take formal action once a breach has taken place. It cannot act before a breach has occurred.

‘Should unauthorised development occur, we will respond in accordance with our planning enforcement plan.’

The council has been contacted for comment again after the work started.

The Felsted parish is steeped in history and boasts a top private school once attended by Oliver Cromwell’s sons.

Felsted School was founded in 1564 by Richard Rich, the first Baron Rich, who served as Lord Chancellor of England during the reign of King Edward VI from 1547 to 1551.

All four of Oliver Cromwell’s sons attended and in more recent years, the school has educated several top cricketers, including England internationals Derek Pringle, Nick Knight, John Stephenson, and Jordan Cox, plus England rugby union player Max Malins.

The field being unlawfully developed is in the historic hamlet of Willows Green, one of a number of green settlements around Felsted that saw development from the Bronze Age.

It was sold by a farmer to a real estate company for £125,000 a year ago.

Since then, it is believed it has been marketed as about ten smaller plots with fears some have been purchased by members of the travelling community.

Bank Holiday weekend developments are a modus operandi that has been used by some members of the travelling community at various sites across the country over the past three decades.

Military-style operations, like the one seen last night, usually commence once the local district council’s offices close on the Friday, before a retrospective planning application, for the work already completed, is handed to the authority when it reopens.

Three councils across the south east were left taking legal action after the Easter bank holiday weekend after different traveller groups set up new unauthorised sites in Surrey, Kent and Hertfordshire.

At one of the locations – a four-acre site at Alfold in Surrey – an interim injunction has been issued following an emergency application from Waverley Borough Council to the High Court after 17 pitches for caravans were created without planning permission.

It ordered the Travellers not to further develop their camp pending another court hearing.

Sevenoaks District Council issued a stop notice to halt work after the illegal construction without planning permission of a traveller site began at a green belt site in Church Road, Sundridge over the Easter weekend.

Frustrated residents watched as thirty vehicles descended on the field despite several prior council warnings

And, about 16 pitches were developed on an area of outstanding natural beauty at Flamstead, Hertfordshire, without permission over the same weekend causing Dacorum Borough Council to apply for an emergency High Court injunction.

Even if planning applications are refused, it triggers a series of legal appeals during which human rights lawyers argue the council in question is not meeting traveller site provision in the area amid a claim of a drastic national shortage.

Richard Freeman, Chair of Felsted Parish Council’s Planning Committee, said on Thursday, before the illegal work started: ‘Members of the parish council did hear rumours and this was referred to Uttlesford District Council, as it is the council that could take any action, but we were told there is not really any action they can take until something happens so the law is really against us.’

The site is registered as being owned by UK Real Estate and Land 2 Limited, which paid £125,000 cash to the previous owner for the land on April 29 2025, with an overage deed arrangement to pay him more if its value were to increase.

The company has been dormant since being set up in May 2023 and was dissolved after a voluntary strike off on April 28 this year.

A planning application was made by one of the new smaller plot owners for a three-bedroom residential log cabin in December, but it was rejected by the council as being an inappropriate development in the countryside and due to the likely presence of the newts.

Several neighbouring households objected to the planning application amid concerns over how the land was being sold as smaller plots.

One wrote: ‘The agricultural field in question was sold off in a number of small parcels very recently… on a speculative basis. We are very concerned that if this application is approved, then the other owners of the various land parcels will want to follow suit.’

Another said: ‘There is a regular free transit of a herd of deer including rare albino deer.

‘The question of sale and division of the field into lots were advertised from a London Agency and did not mention that this land had any permission to convert to residential from agricultural.. I am suspicious of (the) intention with this proposal.’