Fear and anger as travellers defy site owner
BIRKDALE residents have expressed a growing sense of bewilderment as attempts to move travellers from the deaf school site ended in failure.
A large group of travellers arrived at the site off Lancaster Road last Monday (August 8).
Brave Birkdale grandmother Maureen Nash tried to block one of the entrances with her Volvo car in a failed bid to stop the travellers moving in.
Last Friday photographs emerged of a traveller defecating in Lancaster Road and then using toilet paper to clean himself in public.
A Lancaster Road resident has told the Visiter that attempts by the owners to move the travellers have ended in chaos.
The owners are said to have placed concrete in one of the entrances , but the travellers are said to have used a petrol saw to cut through it.
The concerned resident, who asked not to be named, said that on Saturday the owners of the site dumped soil in one of the two entrances to the deaf school. Sefton Council officers then arrived and removed it.
The furious home owner said: “Soil was dumped blocking one of the two entrances and for a while did the job. However the travellers then proceeded to smash the concrete blocking the other entrance out of the way.
“Sefton Council officers then arrived and removed all the soil and hardcore because it had spilled onto the road. So both entrances are now open.
“The travellers do not pay any council tax, yet the surrounding residents who pay tens of thousands of pounds are being ignored.”
Mike Nash, whose wife tried to keep the travellers out with her Volvo, expressed his dismay.
He said: “When I bought my house there was a Section 106 agreement which protected the playing fields off Lancaster Road. However, that protection has since been overturned after a planning inquiry. I tried to get to the bottom of why but was not able to. Then there was a fire at the deaf school site in 2010.
“I do not object to plans to build apartments on the outline of the original building, but the playing field is in the heart of a Green Space conservation area.
“We are obviously very unhappy about the current situation and fear a serious arson incident at the site. The owners should be going about this in a different way. This saga is bad news for the area, and for house prices.”
A spokesman for the owners of the site said they were trying to move the travellers on.
A spokesman for Sefton Council said: “On Saturday we were alerted to a pile of hardcore partly dumped on the highway on Lancaster Road, Birkdale.
“Our contractors were called and the waste was moved later in the day.”
In the past Sefton has pointed out that it does not own the site and is not responsible for moving the travellers from it.