Travellers face eviction after eight-year battle

Inspector’s decision means end is in sight says councillor

TRAVELLERS who have fought for eight years to stay on their illegal caravan site have lost their latest appeal.

It means time should finally be up on the Good Friday park on Bagworth Road, Barlestone.

Officials from Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council look set to seek an injunction for the removal of all occupants.

A court date had been pencilled in to obtain a notice against two extra pitches occupied since the last appeal in February.

Now with a Government inspector backing the council’s call for total eviction, it is expected the whole of the site will be brought into the legal action.

Borough councillor, Chris Boothby said: “It has taken an awful long time but it shows it does not matter who you are or what walk of life you come from you cannot flout the law - we will catch up with you.”

The authority had been trying to force the travellers off the land since they arrived on Good Friday in April 2009.

Eight years of legal wrangling, court appearances and planning bureaucracy have ensued at the taxpayers’ expense.

A High Court ruling in July 2015 backed the eviction, ordering the travellers to find alternative accommodation by January 2017 and to restore the 10-pitch site, a former stable yard, back to original grassland by April.

The residents, led by Patrick Kelly, submitted a planning application in December 2015, asking to keep just five plots with promises to tidy up the site.

This bid was refused in February, leading to the launch of the further planning appeal which has again been dismissed on grounds of highway safety and negative impact on the countryside.

Following an informal hearing in February the Government inspector delivered his verdict on Monday June 12.

He did not uphold the travellers’ contentions the decrease in pitch numbers significantly reduced the impact on highways safety and character and appearance of the area.

The council always maintained the site, accessed off the winding country lane of Bagworth Road with its 60mph speed limit, was potentially dangerous.

In January 2011 a car crash on the stretch resulted in the deaths of 20-year-old friends Jade Srawley and Amelia Ecob.

Councillors branded the constant applications and appeals ‘time-wasting devices’ while long-suffering residents in nearby villages repeatedly complained of anti-social behaviour from site occupants.

A group of travellers who have made camp illegally on Heath Road, Bagworth have been issued with a temporary stop notice.

The group arrived overnight on the Bank Holiday weekend of May 26 and claimed they were only staying a few days before moving on to Appleby Horse Fair.

This started on June 8 with no sign of the travellers leaving. The borough council served notice on the group, the landowner and agents, on Friday June 9, giving them 30 days to quit the site and not return.

The situation is being monitored.