Taypayers hit by £12,000 bill after Travellers fail to pay debt - Cambridgeshire

From Cambridge-News.co.uk

Taxpayers may be hit with a bill for more than £12,000 because Travellers failed to pay for a sewage system.

The debt owed by 28 plot holders at Smithy Fen in Cottenham is expected to be written off by South Cambridgeshire District Council, with just £1,049 of the £13,166 cost recouped so far.

Just £10 was returned last year.

As the News reported, 18,500 gallons of effluent were removed and extensive repairs were carried out at Smithy Fen in January 2008, amid fears the waste was a health hazard.

Many of the problems appeared to have been caused deliberately – including manholes covered with asphalt, stopped up drainage, and sewage contaminated with oil – and a notice served on families to carry out maintenance was ignored.

Cllr Deborah Roberts, an independent who represents Fowlmere and Foxton, claimed Travellers were getting preferential treatment.

She said: “This is quite unacceptable – the council has a duty to get this money back.

“If you owe money to the council and you live in a house they’ll come down on you like a tonne of bricks and what’s good for one should be good for the rest.”

But Cllr Simon Edwards, deputy leader and finance chief, said the council had a legal duty to do the work to prevent a health hazard, and had done as much to retrieve the cash as it would from the settled population.

He confirmed it was likely the debt would be written off soon, and described the situation as “hugely frustrating”, but said efforts would be renewed if the land changed hands.

He said: “Many of the plots haven’t been lived on for more than two years and we’re looking at a debt for each plot of around £300. A bailiff costs £100, so there comes a point where we have to draw a line.

“That point hasn’t arrived yet and it won’t be written off until we’ve done all we can.”