Traveller site clean up could cost council
TAXPAYERS could be left footing the bill for the clearance of an illegal traveller settlement it has taken more than eight years to shut down.
The cost for razing various structures, removing hardcore and reinstating the Good Friday site to original grassland is expected to run into triple figures.
It comes on top of thousands of pounds of taxpayers money already spent since 2009 on getting rid of the unlawful encampment.
According to the court order evicting the travellers they should carry out the remedial work, although realistically this is unlikely to happen.
It then leaves Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council with the task and the financial burden.
Three elderly people still remain on the site, in breach of a county court judgement obtained on January 3.
This ordered all occupants to comply with an enforcement notice previously issued by the borough council and subse- quently upheld by The Planning Inspectorate.
The ruling finally forced the majority of the travellers to depart. It has taken almost nine years of legal wrangling, court appearances and planning bureaucracy - all at the taxpayers expense - to remove the group.
They initially pitched up on the pony pasture between Bagworth and Barlestone on Good Friday in April 2009, prompting action by Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council.
A retrospective planning application for a change of use of land from keeping horses to a residential caravan site for 10 gipsy families was refused by on May 5 2009 and an enforcement notice was issued three days later.
This was appealed and in March 2010 a Government planning inspector granted the group temporary planning permission for three years.
In February 2013, just before the temporary grace period ended, the group applied to make the terms permanent. This was rejected by the council in August and an enforcement notice again served ordering the families to quit.
The families appealed both the planning refusal and enforcement notice but both were upheld on appeal in December 2014, giving the group 18 months to leave and 21 months to restore the land.
When they challenged the inspector’s dismissals in the High Court in July 2015 the Judge ruled the Government official in the right, backing the eviction and ordering the travellers to find alternative accommodation by January 2017 with reinstatement to the original grassland by April.
The council has spent the whole of last year fighting to get this decision enacted. An interim injunction was obtained in June, forbidding occupation of five of the 10 pitches. Later an appeal to retain the other five was dismissed on appeal by a Government inspector and the council pursued an injunction to cover the whole site.
It has taken this further legal order, finally obtained from Leicester County Court on January 3 to enable the eviction.
The three who remain are now in contempt of court and the council will have to go to justices again to obtain a further ruling against them.
A spokesman for Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council said: “All but three residents have now left an illegal travellers site in Bagworth they were ordered them to leave earlier this month. The occupants were also required to return the site to its original, condition.
“This follows a hearing at the county court in Leicester on January 3 regarding the unlawful traveller encampment in Bagworth known as the Good Friday site. The Judge told the occupants to permanently cease using the site as a residential caravan site and reinstate the site to its former condition as an open grassed field. The Judge also instructed the defendants to pay the council’s costs.
“The council is now pursuing further legal and direct action to remove the remaining occupants from the site but continues to seek their co-operation in relocating to other sites through multiagency working with partners.”