Landowner calls for better communication over traveller invasions

WARRINGTON businessman Paul Taylor has called for better communication with landowners in the area following the recent “invasion” when travellers landed on Culcheth village green.
Taylor Business Park had to spend over £3,000 on additional security in just a few days to protect the fifty companies and 500 employees on the site from the travellers when they were moved on from the village green
He said: “While the police, council and council officers did well to get the travellers moved from the village as quickly as they did there seemed to be little to no coordination with local landowners when the move was made. Access to fields bordering the village were not effectively blocked off before they removed them from the village green. They tried to get them to move to Silver Lane but there clearly wasn’t enough room for so many travellers on there.
Mr Taylor added: “This and other factors unfortunately resulted in the travellers moving on to the land between the Business Park and the village where it backs onto the disused railway at the end of the linear park and all of the houses that are down there.
“Travellers are much easier to manage and move on when they’re on council land but the landowners and courts need to get involved when it’s private land and when that land is owned and managed outside of the area and farmed by farmers from another town or village then there is little urgency. Fortunately in this case the travellers’ own anti-social and criminal activities meant that the police could serve a section 61 notice on them.”
During the “invasion” police had to step up their presence in the village following reports of an increase in antisocial behaviour in the shops and other areas, including break ins and trespassing. Thanks to the extra security there were no such incidents on the business park but security staff suffered threats and verbal abuse from those who were denied access.
The Business Park has since proposed to the local council that, as a community, a contact list is drawn up of all the local councillors and local landowners that have land that will need to have access secured in the future when travellers arrive. The business park will be looking to collate a list of individuals and companies with mobile numbers and email addresses so that a text and email alert system can be put in place to provide a fast and efficient response next time an incident happens.
This will make it easier to get in touch with third party land management companies so that issues can be sorted out.
Any one who would like to be involved please email [email protected] with your name, address, email address and mobile number, with the subject line LAND OWNER ALERT.
In the meantime the council will no doubt have to find a method of protecting the green from further incursions while also ensuring that it doesn’t affect local events such as the community day.
Mr Taylor concluded: “Hopefully this will be a lesson learned for us all in the future and I hope this will see better communication between concerned local land owners, the local authorities and council, when large groups like this are being moved on in the future, otherwise we aren’t solving the problem. We are simply moving it to another area.”