Travellers threatened with legal action after setting up camp on Stoke Newington Common - London

From the Hackney Citizen

Civil rights groups are pleading with Hackney Council to call off an impending court clash with Travellers camped on Stoke Newington Common.

The council is taking members of McDonagh family, who have for several weeks been living in caravans in a corner of Stoke Newington Common, to the High Court on Monday after ordering them to quit the park by Thursday 21 June.

It says it has been left with no option but to pursue legal action against the group, who have set up a series of unauthorised encampments in the borough over the past three years, causing “disruption and expense”.

But Yvonne MacNamara, director of the East London-based Irish Traveller Movement in Britain, accused the council of being draconian, adding that there was a chronic shortage of pitches for Travellers.

Ms MacNamara said: “This particular family have been settled in Hackney for a long time and their children are being educated in Hackney. They have nowhere else to go. Hackney Council know they have a very large Traveller community. How do they house them if they are not developing more sites?

“There are people who live in sites in Hackney, but the sites are overcrowded. They are so overcrowded that people spill out from there.

“The council is possibly going to argue that this family have made themselves intentionally homeless, but they are responding to the overcrowding. Now Hackney Council wants to move them from post to pillar rather than actually dealing with the problem.”

Ms MacNamara urged the Town Hall to think again before embarking on what is likely to be a costly legal battle, adding: “You can draw a parallel with Dale Farm.”

Joseph G Jones of campaign group The Gypsy Council said Hackney Council had a duty of care to the McDonaghs.

He said: “The sensible thing for the council to do is to find places for them to live and not just force them to go. If they are living in caravans on an unauthorised area of land, they are homeless people. If you have not got anywhere to put your caravans, you are homeless. This seems to me like an abuse of their human rights.”

In 2010 the coalition government controversially scrapped a scheme whereby local authorities were incentivised to provide more sites for Gypsies and Travellers.

The council’s announcement that it is to take the McDonagh clan to court comes as the borough is staging several events marking Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month.

Activist and local resident Molly Mulready-Jones said she disagreed with the Town Hall’s decision to pursue legal action, adding that, although Hackney had more pitches for Travellers than most boroughs, there were “still not enough”.

The case is listed for Monday in the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand. The Town Hall’s in-house legal team is set to represent the council but there is no record of any solicitor acting for any of the defendants.

Cllr Sophie Linden, Cabinet Member for Crime, Sustainability and Customers Services, said: “We have had to seek an injunction against a single group to prevent them from camping on Hackney’s parks and green spaces. This particular group has persistently set up unauthorised encampments over the past three years causing significant disruption and expense to residents and the council. Hackney’s parks and open spaces are for all the people of Hackney to use and enjoy.

“The council’s policy is to support the welfare needs of Traveller families and we currently have 27 pitches for Gypsies and Travellers on five different permanent sites – the third highest in inner London.”