Wednesday 10 July 2013

Leeds Travellers disrupt rugby - Yorkshire

From the Yorkshire Evening Post

A rugby club is being forced to train elsewhere as an unauthorised Traveller camp continues to park beside its pitch and horses are left to graze on the grass.


Queens Amateur Rugby League Football Club, which rents the fenced-in pitch off Willow Road, Burley, from Leeds City Council, pays the authority £400 a year to use it but has been told the land won’t be cleaned up until the Travellers are evicted.

Doug Smithson, chairman of the club, feels they are being unfairly hit in a situation beyond their control and that the council should be forced to clean the site.

The YEP has reported that the Travellers were allowed to stay on an adjoining car park by Gary Broadley, who separately leases Burley Sports Bar and its car park from the council.

Mr Smithson said: “We are a party that’s being damaged by no fault of our own – we can’t use the place but we have to pay the rent. I have paid a quarter of the rent up front but when I went down last Tuesday it was covered in horse manure.”

Around half a dozen caravans were moved on to the car park of the adjoining former Burley Sports Bar a fortnight ago.

Leaseholder Mr Broadley feels a deal struck with the Travellers not to foul on his or Queens ARLFC’s land has been ignored.

He has two weeks to either apply for planning permission for a permanent Traveller site on the land or seek an eviction notice himself although he intends to do neither.

He said: “What do they achieve by moving them on? They are not addressing the situation.”

He claims the land on which they’re camped is leased and owned by the council, Queens ARLFC and himself, so he should not solely have to evict them.

A council spokeswoman said: “While we sympathise with the club that this process is taking longer than we would wish, we have to wait for the site to be cleared to make sure we can fully cleanse it, and ensure it will not happen again.”

She said the responsibility is Mr Broadley’s to evict the group as they are in his car park.

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