Travellers set up camp on football pitches - Hampshire

From Get Hampshire

AN unauthorised Travellers’ camp was set up on the edge of Farnborough this week.

Fifteen caravans appeared in the car park off the Kennels Lane football pitches, home of Fleet Spurs FC, on the very brink of the Rushmoor and Hart border.

Bollards were allegedly damaged to get onto the site and the Travellers were threatened with facing court action if they did not leave by yesterday (Thursday), 48 hours after the date of the served notice.

As the News & Mail went to press, 11 of the caravans had left.

This car park falls just inside the Rushmoor borough but is actually controlled by Hart District Council. Nonetheless, Rushmoor Borough Council knew of the problem.

Ashley Sharpe, principal contracts manager at the council, said: “We were aware of some Travellers. The car park is one of their favourite locations.

“That is one of their regular locations, it is probably in the top four or five locations in the area that they go to – I am not surprised that they were there.”

Mr Sharpe described the Travellers as a real ‘inconvenience’, and said they can often leave the areas they stay in an unacceptable state.

“Sometimes you are left with a lot of debris on the site,” he said.

“There is always a mattress and green waste, as a lot of these guys cut down trees.

“There are bags of rubbish and human waste unfortunately. A bit like a fly-tip really.”

There was also earlier reports of Travellers pitching up at Farnborough Airport.

However, a spokesman for TAG Farnborough Airport said there were no Travellers at all on any airport land.

Yateley also saw unauthorised Traveller camps set up over the last week, with caravans appearing in car parks and playing fields.

Since Wednesday last week more than 20 caravans have appeared on private land, and Hart District Council served a direction to quit notice relating to three sites.

In one instance a Gypsy family returned to Blackwater Station approach car park with two caravans. Two days later they were served with a direction to quit notice and left the car park.

Four more caravans were spotted on the back of the Monteagle playing fields off Monteagle Lane, in Yateley, and as of Wednesday they were still there.

On Tuesday night a bonfire was started on the site, which police were said to be currently investigating.

Councillor Myra Billings, from Yateley Town Council, said: “We have Travellers camping on the back of the Monteagle playing fields, I’m not sure how they got onto the land but residents are not too happy.”

Don Bowning, from the housing department at Hart District Council, put the spate of new camps down to being ‘the time of year’.