From Whitehill Online
Travellers have moved on to the car park of Birchenwood Sports Pavilion in Kidsgrove. There were reports last night (Monday 3rd) that Travellers began arriving on the site at around 8.30pm and taking up residence on the council owned car park.
The car park does have a gate, however it appears that Newcastle Borough Council have not been locking this for the past few months, something that has clearly become an open invitation for such action to take place. It would be interesting to know why the council stopped closing the gate at dusk, something that will now cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds in legal action and clear up costs after the Travellers have been served with a notice to leave the site.
At the current time it is not clear what action the council is taking and clearly a court order will now need to be served to remove the Travellers from the site. This could mean that they remain on the site over the weekend, clearly causing a real conflict when the Kidsgrove Lads and Dads Sunday league footballers wish to use the car park. This could make parking on Mount Road even more of and issue and something that hopefully Staffordshire Police will take steps to ensure does not endanger the safety of the public.
Update 11:00: We are now informed that Newcastle Borough Council have served the first notice with the Travellers and have applied for a court order.
Update 13:00: The notice served give the Travellers 24 hours to leave the site, if this is not the case then a court order will be applied for which could take up to 2 weeks. It is also suggested that Kidsgrove Sunday League football could be possibly postponed this week as a result.
Newcastle Borough Council informs that the reason the gate has not been closed is due to service changes and cost savings. It was also suggested that this would enable better access to facilities at all times of the day.
see also The Sentinel - Ladsanddads football could be under threat after Travellers set up on Birchenwood playing fields in Kidsgrove
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