Traveller defences to be monitored by the council

MEASURES to stop travellers setting up camp at a Coventry park will be examined if there is evidence the current defences are failing.

A group of around 20 caravans and two motorhomes arrived at the Ponderosa playing fields in Jardine Crescent, at the junction with Broad Lane, last May.

Cllr Peter Male said the travellers caused “havoc” but could only get on the site as the current mounded earth defences were too low.

The council said local football club Mount Nod, which plays on the field, often drove over the mounds, leading them to be flattened.

The have since bolstered the defences as a result, leading to no further incursions.

The club has also been given a key to access the park via a gated entrance, but Cllr Male said it was unfair to blame them and residents, suggesting the council’s own staff drive over the mounds when providing maintenancework.

Head of streetpride and greenspace, Graham Hood, said at a council meeting on Thursday: “I am not aware of our own vehicles doing that but we will investigate it.

“The football club have admitted taking shovels to reduce the mounds and get there vehicles on. We have given them a key to the gate and now they use that.

“But if we think they have been reduced still we will come and bolster them.”