Waltham Cross car park Travellers blame Eric Pickles - Hertfordshire

From the Mercury

TRAVELLERS who have moved into a car park on Lea Road, Waltham Cross, blame communities secretary Eric Pickles for their plight.

“If they made sites for Travellers, there wouldn’t be this problem,” said Traveller Mrs Maughan, 47.

“We pick sites at random. We could find nowhere else to go and it’s nice here.”

The Traveller spokeswoman says that Mr Pickles has called in decisions which set up Traveller sites.

“When they make a decision, Mr Pickles is overruling them,” said Mrs Maughan.

“I know one site he refused in Slough. Now they are taking it to court. They said under the circumstances it should have been passed.

“It does make things very, very hard for the Traveller community.

“People are waiting for the decision to see if they can stay.”

“We have got children need schooling. Children that have health problems. We need to be settled,” said the Traveller, who has a two-year-old granddaughter.

“She should be in nursery and we are not even settled enough to get her in. If we want a doctor, we have to go to the hospital.

“The immigrants have better rights then us. They give them houses.”

She is angry that the government has encouraged Travellers to buy their own land, but is then making them wait a long time to find out if they can set up a campsite on it.

“Travellers aren’t asking the government for anything. We have licences and insurance and tax. We pay our way. We are classed as second class citizens,” she said.

The four Traveller families arrived at the Lea Road site on December 30. They had previously vacated the car park back in October, the day before a court hearing which aimed to evict them.

Michael Gilmartin, managing director of chartered surveyors Gilmartin Ley who manage the Lea Road property said that they have begun legal proceedings.

“It seems the law is completely without teeth when it comes to trespassing on commercial property,” said Mr Gilmartin.

“If I’m an impoverished person does that give me the right to rob a bank? Just because they are deprived of something, it doesn’t give them the right to break the law.

“It’s not a landlord’s problem that there aren’t enough sites for Travellers. We shouldn’t be victimised just because there are policy failures.”