Travellers set up home in Shepshed - Leicestershire

From the Loughborough Echo

Travellers who have been moving around Loughborough for the past month set up camp in Shepshed this week.

The group - consisting of at least seven caravans - moved onto a field opposite the petrol station on Ashby Road Central on Tuesday morning.

One Traveller who called himself John said: “We arrived this morning and the police were here within 20 minutes.

“We have been around Loughborough for about a month now but we’ve been travelling all year.

“We’ve been told we have to move. We’ll go anywhere really, probably another field.

“It does your head in but this is the way we live.”

A Loughborough Police spokesperson said: “We are aware of a number of vehicles that have moved on to a field in the Ashby Road area of Shepshed. The landowner has been informed and local officers will be monitoring the situation.”

But it is now believed that the Travellers have moved from Shepshed to another privately-owned piece of land in Mountsorrel.

Matthew Bagley, Travellers sites and liaison officer at Leicestershire County Council, says the group have previously stopped near the old AstraZeneca site, in the Loughborough Leisure Centre car park and in a lay-by in Dishley.

He said: “I believe they moved Tuesday evening.

“I help where I can but we haven’t got nearly enough sites to accommodate them.”