Town councillors have requested to be kept better informed about the action being taken when travellers set up unauthorised encampments in the town.
Following a meeting with Cheshire East Council (CEC), Cllr Gary Barton presented a report to the Town Council at their meeting on Monday, 16th September.
He told his fellow councillors that they looked at three main areas: prevention, clean up and moving them on - which he said there were very set rules about and sometimes there was a misperception about the powers the council and police have.
Speaking about prevention, Cllr Barton said "Awareness is primarily the reason why Wilmslow in particular has a reasonably high number of incidents because travellers are able to get work from local residents."
He suggested that the main areas the Town Council could assist with was discouraging residents from giving work to the travellers and strengthening sites to limit access. Recent work at Carnival Field includes the installation of lockable bollards which can only be removed with significant machinery.
Cllr Barton has asked CEC to carry out a review of vulnerable sites in Wilmslow, including Carnival Field, the school playing fields and other sites they identify, and report back whether there is a need for any gates, fences etc to be installed - which the Community & Order Committee will then consider funding.
Cllr Hilary Shepherd commented that one of the problems is that when travellers have set up camp in the town local residents don't know what is being done to resolve the problem and therefore assume nothing is being done.
She asked "Would it be possible for Cheshire East to publicise exactly what they are doing? So people know something is being done, as I got a lot of emails asking exactly what is being done. People thought nothing was being done."
Councillors agreed that they would like to receive regular updates and be kept routinely informed about future incidents.
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
The council just has to take reasonable steps to ask the travellers to leave and then the police can act to move them on or confiscate their vehicles. So how long does it take to give the travellers a circular letter and ask them to leave within the next 2 hours?
The reason we have so many travellers is because they can stay for a week, while the council goes through a legal process that doesn't operate at weekends. The "travellers" can then fly tip all they want and again, nothing is done to stop or punish or them.
Cheshire police also have to be bothered to act on this subject and use the powers they have - which given their flimsy excuses and the compliance of the PCC to accept them, won't be any time soon.
Right , well actually they havent left, they are still on the drive into total fitness,
and on the council owned land in Stanley Green.
Here's a suggestion to improve things - a hotlight to report new encampments in the same way that you can report potholes in the road. What are the chances!
Travellers/gypsies know that CEC are a soft touch, always taking a minimum of two weeks for an eviction. Then to add insult to injury, no charges are made for damage, litter, faeces, rubble etc. Us tax payers foot the bill, together with the add on costs of making CEC sites safe.
There are no consequences for their behavior, unlike us tax payers. How much have been paid in fines? Nothing.
Do I trust CEC to ever manage these people? No. They are at least one step ahead. CEC have a traveller/gypsy Liason officer, a department and a budget, which guarantees they will be busy, spending our money looking after the interests of people who constantly abuse our town.
Nothing changes. CEC treat Wilmslow as a cash cow. CEC don't want to use the powers available to them. They want the Travellers/gypsies in Wilmslow. It's a done deal. Actions really do speak better than words.
School property / playing fields have trespass notices supported by positive action..
Why not invoke something similar or ....why not give up .....and keep chasing the donkey to pin on the tail......
Despite previous threads and comments I suspect the latter is easier to achieve and RoW continue to suffer.