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Council in bid to make travellers pay
Council bosses have announced measures to claw back money spent cleaning up after messy travellers.
Last week the Guardian revealed new policies to deal with illegal encampments following a number of high profile incidents in Chorley and South Ribble.
Now, a number of initiatives have been revealed to allow local authorities to recover any money spent in costly clean-up operations.
The 'rules', drawn up by South Ribble Council, Chorley Council and police bosses, include asking travellers to hire their own skips and temporary toilets.
Speaking after a cabinet meeting to discuss the issue, Coun Margaret Smith, leader of South Ribble Council, said: "The cabinet discussed the revised policy on travellers and were quite happy with it, but wanted to see something in there about getting money back."
A new line in the policy promises to 'pursue through the legal system the recovery of all costs restoring land and its property to its original condition.'
Last September, around 100 travellers descended on the BTR playing fields in Farington and caused 8,000 of damage when they left 200 tonnes of rubble and deep holes in the grass.
Coun Smith said the council felt action needed to be taken after travellers used the site like "a public toilet".
She said: "People felt it needed to be done. The place (in Farington) was left as a tip. We took two days of time filling up more than 30 skips. A lot of rubbish was left.
"This will hopefully be an attempt to show if they do anything like that again we will be looking to get back any costs.
"We are working with the police and Chorley Council with this. I think generally people felt we just needed to tighten the policies up."
Sue Whittam, clerk to Farington Parish Council, welcomed the new tougher policies.
She said: "From our point of view we want to make sure we can all work together.
"It's horrible when travellers come on your land, but you have to get the balance right. I know they left us in a mess.
"When it happened to the parish council last year we felt on our own. This is a good step forward.
"We would like to see a bit more meat on the policies once they come out. This to me reads like the first step."
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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