Hull travellers up sticks again just ahead of bailiffs

Different encampments have been moving round Hull since May, with Hull Council having to resort to legal action on four occasions.

In the latest move 25 to 30 caravans – thought to have been on two other sites previously – shifted off Haltemprice Street, west Hull to development land on the old Amy Johnson school site close by.

Hull Council had been poised to send in the bailiffs, but lawyers are now having to draft a fresh eviction notice.

The authority’s head of physical regeneration, Laura Carr, said: “The eviction notice was in place for the Haltemprice site. However over the weekend the travellers have moved on to on the Amy Johnson site which is council-owned land.

“We now have started the legal process to obtain an eviction notice and hope to obtain this from the courts imminently.”

Over the weekend staff used JCBs to shift rubbish off the site of another encampment on the former William Gee school site.

It is not known how much the recent influx of travellers has cost the taxpayer.

Meanwhile councillors are trying to get to the bottom of last month’s incursion on playing fields off Burnham Road.

The travellers, who removed bollards to get into the site at the end of June, left on July 18, after an eviction notice was granted. Residents were angered by the mess left behind.

There will be a public meeting later this month as councillors try to look at what lessons could be learned.

Lib Dem councillor Claire Thomas said: “I think the council needs to look at their process and see if they can shorten some of their checks. My understanding is that each time they arrive at a new site there is a series of checks that they have to go through.

“I think one of the reviews the council needs to go through it whether all the checks need to be done every time.

“We also need to hear from the travellers’ side. It is not a one-sided thing. But it is also really important that local people round the sites that keep getting used, that their views are heard and they are not ignored.”

She added: “I think most of the angry responses have been around the mess.

“It is little things – it is the loss of that little bit of green space. Typically it is the elderly lady who feels frightened to walk their dogs or children going to kick a football and can’t do that.”

Tory councillor John Fareham called for a change in the law and urged the city’s three MPs to take action.

He said: “While I respect travellers’ rights as laid down in the European Convention on Human Rights, there should be changes in the legislation so there is encouragement and protection for those who live within the constraints of society and pay their taxes, and the systems they are paying into made to back them up.”

Meanwhile an appeal against enforcement action by a family of Irish travellers, who were refused permission last November for a permanent encampment in rural Holderness, will be heard at County Hall on August 29.

The travellers, including brothers Anthony, James and Hughie Doherty, who work as landscape gardeners and buy and sell horses, wanted to establish a base in the East Riding, with a fourth pitch for father Anthony Doherty senior and his two daughters. The family have installed a septic tank for waste and laid hardstanding for caravans, which has to be removed.

Arthur Hodgson, the chairman of Keyingham Parish Council and a county councillor, said: “They claim there is insufficient sites for travellers –- we are saying there are sufficient.”