Clean-up after travellers move

A CLEAN-UP operation was carried out after travellers left a Coventry City Council-run park next to the Ricoh Arena.

The group departed Peggies Park in Longford on August 17 - four days after being given a deadline to leave by the local authority.

A resident said the council had been onto the recreation space with two large vans and a road-sweeper to clear up trash left behind by the unauthorised camp, which included around a dozen vehicles.

The neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: “The travellers left a load of rubbish at the bottom of the field. That whole end of the park was littered with car seats, bags, bottles and an office chair.”

Another resident took pictures of the rubbish as well as tyre tracks where it’s thought the travellers had driven on and off the green space.

The person, who also did not want to be named, said: “The mess they left behind was awful.”

The council had given the group notice to leave by 4pm on Friday (August 14) but the group ignored the instruction and stayed over the weekend.

The local authority had been due to go to court on Wednesday to secure an eviction order.

A spokesman for Coventry City Council said: “We had an eviction hearing booked for Wednesday of this week but the travellers left by their own accord yesterday afternoon ahead of the court action.”

A series of stand-offs have taken place between traveller groups and councils in Coventry and Warwickshire over the past two months.

Last week, a journalist and activist campaigning on behalf of travellers warned they face a “chronic” shortage of suitable places to stop nationally.

Lisa Smith, an editor and writer at the Travellers’ Times, said: “There’s a national, chronic shortage of adequate, suitable stopping places.

“Local authorities are not providing enough pitches at the moment and there are a lot of counties with no transit sites or places where travellers can stop where there are pitches available, so what happens is travellers stopping in what could be seen as inappropriate spaces.

“But often it’s because it’s a failure by the Government to ensure there are enough suitable pitches across the UK. It’s a problem that has been going on for many, many years now.”