Travellers set up camp on town centre car park

Travellers set up camp on town centre car park

Business owners and shoppers are up in arms after travellers set up camp on a busy town centre car park – taking up disabled bays and causing shoppers to u-turn.

At least 15 vehicles including caravans and camper trucks, appeared on Thursday night on the car park of Dunelm Mill and Carpetright at the bottom of Whitworth Road.

The council-owned car park usually has frequent traffic wardens patrolling the area, although none were seen yesterday (Friday 8 July) as the travellers continued to take up a large part of the space.

A local business manager, who did not want to be named, said: “It’s marvellous. Every day the wardens come here searching for what they can get, they are here every half an hour trying to book people. Then we get absolutely taken over by caravans – where are they now? There is no one in sight.

“The police have been past loads of times today but they never stop to have a look around, and there’s no one from the council in a rush to come over. In the meantime we are all losing business.”

Ian, who works at Carpetright, said: “I don’t understand why the council can’t just move them on, surely there are laws against this. It’s turning our customers around.”

The Rochdale Borough Council website has a section describing its position. It reads:

If gypsies or travellers are causing problems they will be moved on as soon as is possible and reasonable. We will consider each case on its merits. In all cases the site is visited and every effort made to make sure that the gypsies and travellers keep the site tidy and do not cause public health problems. This sometimes means that refuse collection facilities may be provided for this purpose.

We cannot remove gypsies or travellers from land immediately. We must:

• Show that they are on the land without consent.
• Make enquiries regarding the general health, welfare and children's education.
• Ensure that the Human Rights Acts 1998 has been fully complied with.
• Follow a set procedure in terms of proving ownership of land and details of the illegal encampment that will enable us to successfully obtain the necessary authority from the courts to order the gypsies or travellers to leave the site.