'We're not doing any harm' — Travellers hoping to stay on at Riverside Nature Park - Dundee

From the Courier

A councillor who has been monitoring the problem said it is now time to escalate legal action against the Irish itinerants.

The group of Travellers settled in the nature park's car park on Monday and on Tuesday they were served with a legal notice by the landowners, Dundee City Council, giving them 24 hours' notice to leave.

The deadline passed on Wednesday with the Travellers not budging, a development West End councillor Fraser Macpherson described as unacceptable.

''It is now for the council to escalate legal action to make them move. It is council-owned land, they have no right to be there and it is as simple as that,'' he stated.

''The nature park is there for the benefit and enjoyment of the general public and its car park can't become a camp site for travelling people.

''With the travellers there the general public can't leave their own vehicles in the car park and go and enjoy the nature park, and that is not acceptable.

''The housing department have a liaison officer for travelling people and I know we have been encouraging Travellers who set up unofficial camps to go to the official site at Balmuir Wood.

''If they are refusing to do this and are defying the 24-hour legal notice to quit, the council can escalate legal action to make them move.''

Mr Macpherson declined to say exactly what the council would do, but it is understood officers may return on Thursday accompanied by the police to tell the visitors they must go.

There is a presumption against prosecuting travellers who set up unofficial camps, but procurators fiscal retain discretionary powers to take court action and may take proceedings where it is deemed in the public interest.

Mr Macpherson said travelling people setting up unofficial camps on land in the west end of the city was not a new phenomenon and many landowners had tried to deal with the problem by blocking vehicular access.

He continued: ''Now that the problem has reached the nature park we may have to consider something like more security and closing the car park to the public in the evenings.

''That would be a shame, because it would prevent the general public from using the park in the manner we want at these times.''

Earlier on Wednesday one of the Travellers, John O'Brien, said they would be going nowhere.

''We're very clean people,'' he said. ''They want us out, but we're not doing any harm here. We'll be here for the next week or so. If they push us then we'll have to go but we're hoping for another week.''

The group have come over from Ireland, and Mr O'Brien said ''This is a tourist car park, and we're just over for the holidays for two or three weeks.

''If we get a good spot while we're here we'll probably stay if we like it, but with this craic I don't think it'll be here.

''We've told the council we'll keep the place clean and tidy, which we're doing, and we're not stopping anyone from coming in and out.''

On Wednesday evening the car park was well filled with a collection of caravans and vehicles.

A German shepherd dog was sitting at the entrance and the Travellers had laundry spread over the nature park's fence.