Plymouth inquiry hears of "disgusting" Gypsy camp - Devon

From the Herald

NEIGHBOURS endured two weeks of hell after Travellers set up camp next to their homes, an inquiry has been told.

Excrement was dumped into hedges around Horsham Fields in Plymstock, local man Andrew Nutbean told a Plymouth City Council scrutiny panel yesterday.

Builders’ rubble including asbestos was tipped near homes, and the noise of cement mixers being banged out and trailers being welded went on at times until 2am, Mr Nutbean said.

Elderly people cowered in their own homes, too terrified even to call the police.

The Traveller invasion of the playing fields in Plymstock in June has sparked a full-scale review of how Plymouth City Council handles illegal encampments.

But a Gypsy journalist travelled from Hastings in East Sussex to make an impassioned plea for more understanding.

Jake Bowers said the solution to unauthorised encampments was to provide legal, self-financing campsites. “It’s obviously disgusting, the way people behaved and the way they have treated the local community,” he said. “As a Roma Gypsy that’s not part of my culture.

“A lot of us would be horrified to hear about that kind of behaviour. There is an enormous amount of fear. Of course you are going to be fearful of someone who puts excrement in your hedge. But you may have more in common than you realise.”

He said that councils which provided an adequate number of managed permanent and transit sites for Gypsies and Travellers had few problems. “If not, you’ll keep spending money on refuse collection and enforcement.”

And he said Plymouth should send out the message that this is a city which values Gypsy culture.

“People tend not to trash places they value,” he said.

Police have the power to use Section 61 of the Crime and Disorder Act (1998) to move people immediately. But Chief Inspector Brendan Brookshaw of Devon and Cornwall Police said: “Those are quite draconian measures and we have taken a proportionate response.

“This is a no-win situation for police and the local authority in terms of the way the public view it.”

He accepted that there some in the Traveller community committed crime, but said: “If you have one or two people in your street committing crime you would not expect the police to come and treat everyone as if they were criminals.”

He said it would be futile to move the Travellers immediately using Section 61 because they would probably just move to another site in the city.

However, Mr Nutbean said the council and police refused to take any positive action at all until the Travellers had left Horsham Fields. Even then, he said, council staff had to be called back a second time to complete the clean-up of Horsham Fields.

He said the cost of cleaning up was £10,000, which would have more than covered the cost of having two police officers stationed at the field to ensure good behaviour.