Council to extend deadline to vacate Traveller camp

Illegal Mearns estate was due to be cleared by July

Dozens of Traveller families are likely to remain on an illegal Mearns housing estate until at least the end of the year.

Residents of North Esk Park at St Cyrus were given until the end of July to vacate the permanent camp, which appeared without authority in late-2013.

Although eventually being given permission to stay by Aberdeenshire councillors, Scottish ministers overturned the approval when environmental agency Sepa objected on flood risk grounds.

Despite the order to vacate the site, council officials are continuing talks with the Travellers and looking for possible alternative sites.

Almost 50 permanent residents and up to 150 stop-over Travellers stay at the park.

Officials say the residents are “settled and the site well-managed” and believe a sixmonth extension before enforcement would “allow more time for a solution to be found which avoids the need for direct action”.

Hundreds of Travellers are likely to be given at least a six-month extension to their occupation of an unauthorised site in the Mearns.

Just weeks before the end of the July date set by Scottish ministers for residents to get off the North Esk Park site, which sprang up without planning permission almost five years ago, Aberdeenshire councillors will this week be asked to delay the eviction to avoid the authority having to take “direct action”.

Kincardine and Mearns area manager Willie Munro has detailed ongoing talks with the Travellers, as well as efforts to identify possible alternative sites, but admits there is no way the July 31 deadline for departure will be met.

The Travellers appeared on farmland close to the River North Esk and St Cyrus nature reserve in 2013. After refusing planning permission and instigating enforcement, Aberdeenshire councillors voted to grant permission for the creation of an official halting and touring site in April 2016.

However, the application was called in when Sepa objected because the site had flooded on a number of occasions, including in the aftermath of Storm Frank in 2015, which forced residents from their caravans.

Scottish ministers then overturned the retrospective planning permission and the Travellers were given until July 31 2018 to leave.

Thursday’s full council will be told a series of meetings has taken place between officers and North Esk representatives, with indications there are around 40 residents on permanent plots and usually 50 to 150 in the stop-over part of the site.

Mr Munro’s report states: “In terms of the identification of a new site, the original promoter of the site said that it would need to be located in an area within the southern Mearns, no further north than Laurencekirk or Inverbervie.”

The report reveals that 16 potential new sites have been looked at, with only four identified as possible alternatives.

“These sites are the subject of a report to the Gypsy/traveller sub-committee at its next meeting.

“It is worth nothing that although the sites are within council ownership, there is no budget provision for the promotion of a Gypsy/traveller site at the moment,” states the report.

gbrown@thecourier.co.uk

The North Esk Park site was first occupied in 2013.