Travellers to be evicted from Field Lane car park in Batley
TRAVELLERS have been moving from one Batley car park to another for the past month.
And as Kirklees Council prepares to evict them, they say they will just move onto yet another car park.
Their latest move was almost a fortnight ago, when around 10 caravans moved from Wards Hill Car Park, off Wellington Street, to another council-owned car park across the road in Field Lane.
They plan to stay until the council evicts them.
Traveller Peter Cash said: “We’re staying until the council kicks us off. Then we’ll go to another car park. We stop no-one from parking, they can park here as much as they want.”
One town centre trader, who did not wish to be named, asked why the travellers didn’t receive parking tickets for overstaying and parking outside of marked bays.
She said: “If we were to park there like that we would get a ticket.”
But a spokesman for Kirklees Council said it had to treat the travellers as trespassers in order to gain an eviction notice.
If the council issued fines to the travellers, it would authorise their stay on the land and could prevent their eviction, he said.
So far this year around £24,000 has been spent across Kirklees on eviction proceedings for traveller camps. A council spokesman said options for dealing with the camps were limited and court proceedings were considered to be the cheapest and fastest solution.
He added the council was now considering alternatives to trespasser proceedings, in light of the ongoing problems in Batley, but couldn’t elaborate on what they were.
Coun Shabir Pandor, (Lab, Batley West), said the travellers at Field Lane would be evicted tomorrow. He said: “Court action to remove the travellers from the car parks in Batley has been given priority in order to limit inconvenience and disruption to visitors and residents.”
Let us know your views. Write to Letterbox, details on page 26.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Batley
Wednesday 19 June 2013
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 10 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Light rain
Temperature: 11 C to 17 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: East
