GYPSIES CLAIM RIFLE SITE’S A CHEAP SHOT

Fear of gunfire

TRAVELLERS are refusing to be moved next to a rifle range.

They claim they were shot at on a previous campsite and could suffer flashbacks.

Council chiefs have asked the group to move from a car park – where they are currently camped illegally – to spare land next to a gun club. But they told Derbyshire Dales District Council that the gunfire will spook them.

Tory councillor Vicky Massey-Bloodworth said: “I understand we have to put them somewhere.

“We have a duty of care to help them and this is not the way to do it.’’

Labour councillor Irene Ratcliffe said: “I do not know how we can go ahead with putting them next to a rifle range operating three days a week.’’

But council chief executive Paul Wilson said the travellers – who have six vehicles – were taking up much-needed car parking spaces in Ashbourne,

Derbys, where they have been camping for a month. He said their presence was having an “economic effect” on the town.

Lewis Rose, the Conservative council’s leader, said it was “stuck between a rock and a hard place”.

In the end, councillors voted by 12 to four to approve making the land next to the Matlock and District Rifle Club a “temporary tolerated site”.

Rifle club official Len Webster said: “We have very strict rules. If we did anything wrong we would lose our licence.”

WAXWORKS of Morecambe and Wise have been restyled to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the jokers’ first BBC series. Madame Tussauds in Blackpool have put the funnymen in their white suits and top hats from 1977.