Police chief vows to deal with ‘roving vagabonds’ Commissioner accuses some travellers of serious crime
THE West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner described some travellers as ‘roving vagabonds’ engaged in serious crime as he unveiled a new plan to deal with the problem of unauthorised camps.
Labour commissioner David Jamieson made the comments as a council and police summit agreed a new plan to share information and take action to deal with travellers.
Measures could include ‘negotiated stopping points’ to keep caravans out of parks, the creation of more official traveller camp sites with electricity hook ups and toilet facilities.
Mr Jamieson, who also described some of the travellers as bands of “brigands”, also pledged more help to private businesses and landowners who have been targeted.
Last summer Birmingham’s parks and open spaces were inundated with travellers who set up camp, intimidated locals and left a trail of rubbish and debris in their wake.
The number of unauthorised camps in the West Midlands rose from 143 in 2013 to 278 in 2016.
Critics claimed councils and police were too slow to act, failed to work together and in some cases moved the problem camps on to the next council or police area.
Now they have agreed a joined-up approach including using shared staff to coordinate action and share information, including evenings and weekends when the caravans tend to move into parks. They will also set up a single point of contact for genuine travellers.
Mr Jamieson said: “At the moment, the situation isn’t working – for both the settled population and the travelling community. It is not working for the travelling community and some people are being pushed into looking like criminals whereas they are not.
“On the other hand some people who call themselves part of the travelling community are actually nothing but roving vagabonds – it’s serious crime on the move. That’s just unacceptable. It’s lawlessness.”
He said the settled community were also ‘deeply unhappy’ and often believe police and councils have more powers than they do. He added that genuine travellers, who move on to sites with permission and clean up after themselves, were not only tarred with the same brush but also come under attack from the criminal element.
Mr Jamieson said: “We need to have clarity on this issue and the summit has helped us achieve that. We need to be more intelligence-led action to stop it happening again.
Local resident Tim Watson, 65, claimed people were avoiding using the leisure centre and adjacent golf club because they were getting verbally abused.
“It’s horrendous, nothing seems able to be done,” he said.
“The golfers are refusing to play as they are scared about what might happen to their vehicles in the car park. It’s a nightmare.
“The travellers have been throwing dirty nappies around, and the kids have been running on the golf course.
“If you try to ask them to leave you just get a mouth full of bad language off the fathers.”
Mark Croxford, head of environmental health at Birmingham City Council, said: “The council is committed to actively protecting its land and will take steps with Birmingham Community Leisure Trust to recover this land.” and share data between all agencies involved. We now have a set of practical action points we can work on to improve things for everybody.”
Helen Jones, of the Leeds GATE gipsy/traveller service, told the summit that the authorities can help by engaging with travellers, providing skips, toilets and swiftly dealing with some of the minor issues before they build up.