Flintshire Travellers ‘have nowhere to go’

From the Leader

A FAMILY of Travellers facing eviction from an illegal site have said they have nowhere else to go.

Flintshire Council is taking action to remove six caravans from Deeside Leisure Centre and it is expected they could be moved within days.

But Margaret Jones, 63, who lives on the site with nine other travellers, said there was a lack of permanent sites.

She said: “All the permanent sites are full up. There is nowhere else for us to go. There is a problem in the county to find sites to go to, we would like to see more done.”

Flintshire Council has made an application to the courts for the repossession of the land at the leisure centre.

As of January there were four authorised and two unauthorised Gypsy camps in Flintshire, this compares with three authorised and two unauthorised sites in Wrexham.

Neither Denbighshire or Conwy have sites for travellers.

Mrs Jones said members of the Gypsy community are often moved on as soon as they find a site to occupy and said it was “difficult”.

She said: “It is a problem. There is nowhere else to go. There are only adults here, no children. There is no harm being done. We make sure all the rubbish is collected.

“We are a very close knit group on this site, we are all one family.

“If we could find a permanent site, we could have a better quality of life, we could get access to doctors and other facilities.

“On permanent sites you can make sure the children can go to schools.
“There is a lack of action not just in Flintshire but across the country.”

Mrs Jones said the family had been living on land near Queensferry B&Q for the previous three months and had not identified a site to move to after leaving the leisure centre.

A number of complaints have been received by the council about the site.
Flintshire Council is currently involved in a review on the needs of the Traveller community which is ongoing in North Wales.

LAST month it was revealed plans for a Gypsy site off Magazine Lane, Ewloe, were set to go to a public inquiry.

An application by Martin Rooney to build a five-caravan site drew more than 270 objections when it was first lodged in August 2010 and was thrown out by a Flintshire Council planning committee in January.

But Mr Rooney has since appealed and a public inquiry is scheduled to take place in July.