TRAVELLERS living at Europe's largest illegal gypsy camp this week pledged to convert the site into a community woodland once they find another place to live.

Residents of Dale Farm, in Crays Hill, would help to plant dozens of oak trees on the five-acre plot, provided Basildon Borough Council approves new sites and calls off its £18 million plans to evict them.

The news emerged as politicians and other officials sympathetic to the travellers' cause visited the green belt site on Thursday.

Addressing the delegation, Candy Sheridan, the vice-chairman of the Gypsy Council, which represents the interests of travellers in the UK, said: "We are offering to restore the green belt here to a community woodland so that other residents can benefit.

"We would restore it to its former glory and it would be a public open space."

Delegates, including parliamentarians Lord Eric Avebury and Andrew Slaughter MP and Irish embassy official Michael Keaveney, were also told how representatives of the 1,000 or so Irish travellers who live at Dale Farm were trying to find alternative sites.

Traveller spokesman Grattan Puxon said: "We have the offer of land from the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) and now it might be possible to explore getting land from the Ministry of Defence."

The borough council has already set aside up to £8 million – £1.2 million of which has come from the Government – to evict up to 86 families from Dale Farm.

Elsewhere, Essex Police are waiting to hear if their own application for £10 million from Whitehall has been successful and, as a result, the council has yet to deliver a 28-day notice of eviction to the occupants of Dale Farm.

One planning application has been submitted to the council for a new traveller site in Pound Lane, Laindon, which would be capable of housing 12 static caravans.

Two other planning applications for other sites within the borough are expected to be submitted soon.

Lord Avebury, the secretary of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Gypsy and Traveller Law Reform, spoke to the Gazette after being shown around Dale Farm.

He said: "We are trying to help to find a solution which doesn't involve the eviction of all these families. We believe that a solution is possible and we are prepared to do everything we can to assist Basildon Borough Council in reaching this decision."

Dale Farm resident Richard Sheridan, who is president of the Gypsy Council, said the support offered by the politicians made him "feel proud to be British".