IT’S as much a Bank Holiday tradition

as dancing round the Maypole and hailstorms. Right on cue, members of the ‘travelling community’ move on to unspoilt farmland and set up an illegal camp. At the weekend, it was the turn of the Hertfordshire village of Little Hadham to be on the receiving end. About 100 travellers moved in over Easter and used this Bank Holiday to start laying hardstanding and foundations for a permanent settlement. House values in the area have already plummeted, as the newcomers dig in for the duration. ‘We are not going anywhere, we are here for ever,’ one of them told Mail Online. They have bought the land, but are building on it illegally, without planning permission. Yet don’t expect the authorities to do much about it in a hurry. The poor folk of Little Hadham are in for a long war. Expect a re-run of the ten-year occupation of Dale Farm in Essex. Householders across Britain have learned to their cost that abiding by the law and paying your taxes affords you fewer ‘rights’ than so-called travellers, who rarely do either, let alone actually travel anywhere.