The weather over the last week or two has announced that spring is very much here and summer will be along pretty quickly behind. That’s mostly good news all round but it does bring with it one downside that we feel acutely here in Somerset: Illegal traveller encampments.
A few weeks ago, there was an encampment in the Park & Ride at Taunton that led to the carpark being closed for a number of days causing disruption for those commuting to or visiting our county town. This week there is a small illegal encampment near to Apex Park in Burnham-on-Sea.
To be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the traveller lifestyle and it is right that councils are required to make provision for travellers with caravan pitches that they can use. However, this provision cannot be unlimited and must be dictated by the availability of appropriate sites, as is the case for approving development for housing for the settled community.
Moreover, we should not and will not accept the argument that illegal encampments are acceptable if there are insufficient sites to meet demand. Breaking the law is breaking the law. The thing that winds the settled community up more than anything else is the way that the traveller community appears to want one set of rules for them and another for everyone else. As people tell me time and time again, they aren’t allowed to just build a house wherever they wish because there are planning laws that are enforced by the local council.
Our local councils have my full support in seeking to move on illegally encamped travellers as quickly as possible. I’m also pushing the Government to introduce a law similar to the Irish law of criminal trespass which makes it a criminal, rather than civil, offence to occupy land. In Ireland this has proven to be hugely successful in reducing the number of illegal encampments. I’m hopeful it will do the same here.