Bournemouth council earmark additional £225k in budget to clean up after Travellers

From the Daily Echo

BOURNEMOUTH has been forced to increase the money it spends on Travellers, following a record number of illegal encampments this year.

An extra £225,000 will boost the council’s community action fund and help meet the costs of the 16 unauthorised incursions that have occurred on the town’s parks, playing fields, open spaces and car parks during the first half of this year.

Council leader John Beesley said that, if officer time was included, the large number of incursions had probably cost the public purse even more than this amount.

He said the council would also be allocating capital funding for extra preventative measures at some of the most vulnerable sites.

A report to Wednesday’s cabinet meeting said the Traveller incursions had placed ‘significant and extraordinary costs’ on front-line services.

It added that council departments were able to absorb some unplanned costs but the sheer number of incursions this year had put severe pressure on budgets.

Cllr Beesley and Poole’s deputy leader Cllr Mike White recently held a meeting with government minister Bob Neill to vent their frustration at the difficulties they face when trying to evict unauthorised encampments of Travellers.

They are calling for the court process for evictions to be made simpler and are also seeking clarification on whether individual councils are all required required to provide an authorised site.

As well as the 16 encampments in Bournemouth, there have also been a further eight on council-owned land in Poole and three on privately-owned land.