Hundreds of Irish Travellers are bracing themselves for a possible eviction today from an English caravan park.
More than 60 Traveller families have been ordered to leave the site at Cray's Hill in Basildon, Essex, where they have been living for up to eight years.
Martin Collins of Pavee Point, who travelled from Dublin for a weekend protest in Essex against the evictions, said "the situation is quite tense and volatile".
Around 200 people took park in Saturday's "freedom march" to the offices of Basildon District Council, which had given the families until midnight on Friday to vacate the site.
The unofficial encampment hit the headlines during the British general election when Tory leader Michael Howard visited the site to complain about illegal dwellings.
Council officials agreed to meet the demonstrators for talks at the weekend, but a spokeswoman for the families said little progress was made. A spokesman for Basildon District Council said: "There is a plan (for eviction) in place but it is not necessarily the course of action we will chose."
