Travellers leave Dairy House Lane 'largely tidy'

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The travellers who have been camped on land to the rear of Total Fitness in Handforth have now moved on to public land opposite.

Having left Carnival Field last week, fifteen caravans parked up on Council owned land near Dairy House Lane, just within the Cheshire East border. As a result the rear entrance to the fitness club was closed for nearly two weeks.

Cheshire East Council served them with a repossession order yesterday and according to the Council they have left the site tidier than they left both Carnival Field and the school fields just off the A34 where they left behind mounds of rubbish, rubble, tarmac and tree debris which cost in the region of £10,000 to clear up.

A spokesperson for Cheshire East Council said: "The Council served a repossession order on a group of Travellers on Council-owned land off Dairy House Lane, in Handforth, last night (Monday, July 29), and they left the site that evening.

"The site was left largely tidy with rubbish placed in black bin bags for collection. The Travellers have now moved on to private land opposite."

Wesley Hutton, Team Leader at Cheshire East Council, confirmed that his team have collected two full cage wagons of litter but there was not much soil, tarmac or flagstones there.

Wesley said "We do visit the sites once they arrive and supply them with bin liners, we do also ask them to put full ones in a certain collection point and we visit twice a week when passing to collect the rubbish they do bag up (which is minimal) most of it they have thrown out of the caravan doors."

He added "They say they are moving on due to it being a certain time of year where they go to another part of the England for a religious holiday, I am hoping it is due to local people realising how much it is costing the tax payer to clear up after employing them to do cheap labour. As one person responded on wilmslow.co.uk, canvassers no longer circulate the area for work, if someone does knock on your door there is a 90% chance travellers are in the area, use the yellow pages and support local businesses."

Tags:
Cheshire East Council, Dairy House Lane, Handforth, Total Fitness, Travellers, Wesley Hutton
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Comments

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.

Mark McCall
Wednesday 31st July 2013 at 9:35 pm
Are we supposed to be thankful for this?!

Get a grip
Julia Prestbury
Thursday 1st August 2013 at 12:12 pm
Totally agree Mark, that's big of them, seeing as how they don't pay council tax etc.
Terry Roeves
Friday 2nd August 2013 at 1:36 pm
CEC employs a Traveller/Gypsy Liason Officer. So there's a budget and I'm convinced an element of Parkinson's Law in operation. Here is what he recently wrote.... Thank you for your correspondence  
Cheshire East Council makes the moving of travellers a priority in Cheshire east Borough, section 61 is an effective method of removal, however this is done solely by the Police, the council have no involvement, and this method can only be used if the group are causing harassment alarm and distress to residents in the local area, as a local authority we have to take the Travellers welfare into consideration. When attending an illegal encampment an assessment is done which then determines the route the council will take to remove the travellers.
If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact me.
 
Tim Kingston
Gypsy and Traveller Liaison officer

Section 61 was used by GMP recently - 24 hours notice and 24 hours to leave I believe. Don't think that CEC has used this in Wilmslow, but could be wrong.
So IF you experience harassment, alarm and distress contacting the police seems to be a faster solution, IF they agree with you.
Happy days!
Simon Worthington
Wednesday 7th August 2013 at 6:50 am
Illegal encampments of this type always cause harassment, alarm and distress - and theft, noise, unhygienic rubbish, fly tipping, barking dogs and other feral behaviour. And always cost us money.