Unborn child saves travellers from eviction

Travellers on illegal site allowed to stay for five years

TRAVELLERS who pitched up illegally on open land near a Hinckley farm have been given a five-year stay of execution because one of the occupants is pregnant.

The families who moved onto the site just north west of Cold Comfort Farm at Rogues Lane last July won their appeal against eviction by Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council.

A Government planning inspector determined they should remain despite stating the site was unsustainable, contrary to the council’s development strategy and harmful to the countryside.

Instead the official decided as one of the occupants was pregnant, Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child applied and special circumstances should be taken into account.

He considered a five year permission would safeguard the wellbeing of the child and allow he or she to attend a local school.

He also noted while work was in hand, the borough council had not yet completed an official plan for the allocation of traveller sites.

When the group first arrived on the land the authority acted quickly, imposing a temporary stop notice and obtaining a county court injunction.

The council later gained a full stop notice and enforcement notice.

However in September last year a county court judge refused to grant an injunction requiring the travellers to move on as they had appealed the enforcement notice.

He ruled they should be allowed to see out the appeal.

Now the appeal has been successful it means the council has no further powers to force the families to quit the site, despite its initial establishment being a breach of planning law and an ongoing source of frustration for locals.

The land had been subject to a number of planning applications for two travellers’ pitches along with day rooms and hardstanding.

The last official bid, submitted by Michael Cash, was withdrawn on June 30 2015, a day before it was due to be heard by planning committee councillors and two days before the vans parked up.

Previous applications had all been turned down.

The upheld appeal was against an eviction notice issued on July 23, giving the travellers three calendar months to vacate the site and four months to restore it back to a grassed field.

According to local reports the site has been occupied by as many as four caravans, along with a number of cars and pick-up trucks and a camper van with awning.

Residents have reported the construction of a shed-like structure and fence panels with a postbox being nailed to the site gatepost.