Anger over Travellers in Newent after they are granted six months more time - Gloucestershire

TRAVELLERS should be given less time to leave their illegally occupied site in Newent, residents say.

Enforcement notices were served on the group in Southend Lane this week ordering the group to leave within six months. It is two years after a similar notice was issued.

Newent's mayor Len Lawton said:"Six months kind of rattles a bit. Ideally I think the community would have preferred it to be a shorter period of time.

"The Travellers there haven't done anything to find a new home for themselves, all they've done is try and consolidate that site as their own."

The latest attempt to remove them follows an appeal taken by Travellers following a previous enforcement notice in June 2009.

That appeal was lost but the planning inspector gave them two years temporary permission on the land to give them sufficient time for other sites to be identified.

The temporary period expired on 31 January this year.

On our website, www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk, readers were incensed the travellers had been granted six months grace.

Stuntgirl1 said: "They are there for good, you just have to face facts and get used to it."

CaptCX added: "These people move where they want, when they want and they seemingly have an army of sympathisers fighting their corner, allowing them to circumnavigate rules that the rest of us have to abide by."

But Woeyjoey said: "Well done the Forest of Dean District Council for having some backbone. Government inspectors have decreed that this site is unsuitable – time to go to an authorised site."

Qwerty05 said: "This is good news for Newent house owners. Prices will surely now go sky high."