TRAVELLERS have been reported arriving at two different locations in Warrington today, along with a third encampment still at Fearnhead.
An encampment comprising of five caravans and associated vehicles has arrived on land at Valiant Park, Padgate.
Warrington Borough Council’s gypsy and traveller support officers have confirmed the land is in private ownership and are attempting to contact the owners, while also conducting welfare checks on the group.
Meanwhile another encampment, also comprising five caravans and associated vehicles was reported at Apollo Park, Westbrook, earlier today.
However, early reports have indicated that the encampment has moved off the land and onto Toys R Us’ land.
Meanwhile an encampment of five caravans and associated vehicles remains at Fearnhead from last weekend, with the council currently taking out court proceedings to secure eviction next Tuesday.
10 Comments
well it’s been a nice day out for the welfare checkers, better than sitting in a stuffy office writing up the results.
These “travellers” are running circles around the council. Even if, god forbid, the council wastes £2million building a transit camp, they will still pitch up and still play the system regardless of what the council “yes-men” tell us. They will quote welfare and human rights, not enough spaces so they are forced to illegally camp, etc etc….
Apparently once we have an official transit camp the police can immediately move them on if they don’t use it – hence Halton doesn’t have the same level of issues we have in Warrington
So you believe that spending £2million will solve the problem? What happens when there are transit camps in every borough but not enough spaces for every “traveller”? Where do they go then?
This is a growing problem and building camps for them is only going to encourage more “travellers” to descend
Well we have got to do something and do it fast! It seems to be helping resolve the problem in neighbouring Halton so hopefully will work here as well. And in the grand scheme of things £2m is small fry compared to £30m invested in a bank and £1.3m to move the conotaph to a temporary home!
From the council report our Julie posted, they aren’t moving it to a temporary home, they are putting it into storage while the work is being done. Maybe use the money to move it to a new and permanent location in Queens Gardens or Bank Park and give the travellers a one way ferry ticket back to Ireland
Yes that is correct and having a transit site will mean the police/council then have the powers to move illegal encampments on immediately. But having said that I’m with Baz on this one 100% as the vast majority will probably just turn up and take their chance anyway. I presume that even if we do have a Transit site those who don’t bother with it and still take route wherever they please will STILL be subject to the usual ‘Welfare Checks’ before being moved on anyway. All these checks and police time cost money.
Seems we’re not the only ones: “There is currently a huge traveller encampment at South Winchester Park and Ride which currently totals more than fifty vehicles with more vehicles arriving steadily for the past forty eight hours.”
I’ve just read on the ‘Report Crime Warrington’ facebook page that apparently there’s some on one of the business car parks at Centre Parks too now (ie over the blue bridge at Brian Bevan Island). So how many groups is that now ?
Maybe there’s a wedding or a funeral on as it seems strange that so many groups have all descent at once.
They are camped on the Phonak car park and the company have had to “borrow” car park spaces from the Village hotel as workers were worried that their cars would be damaged if the parked them on their own car park. Phonaks car park is always full all day anyway so these invaders are just costing the company time and money that they could be investing back into their business and the town as a whole