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Dale Farm travellers lose High Court eviction appeal. Bishops pleads for Essex travellers

 The Bishop of Brentwood Thomas McMahon has pleaded with Basildon Council to reach a last-minute agreement with hundreds of travellers just hours before the deadline passed for them to leave England's largest illegal campsite. Bishop McMahon, and the Anglican Bishop of Chelmsford, Stephen Cottrell, offered to mediate between the local authority and around 240 traveller families at Dale Farm in Crays Hill, Essex, who had been given until midnight tonight to leave or face eviction.