First of all, it was due to be at 8 o’clock this morning (Monday 13th August) – a time which quickly slipped to 3pm due to enforcement availability issues. Then, when Bailiffs arrived at Sellors’ Playing Field for the planned eviction this afternoon, they were informed that some of the men (and hence their vehicles to tow the caravans off with) were working in Peterborough!
Almost another six mickey-taking hours later, with Police, Bailiffs and Council officials all having been left hanging in limbo to see them off the site and re-secure the main gate, the last few travellers finally deigned to leave – with a little extra encouragement from Rushcliffe Police. Mercifully, at least it seems the whole, painfully slow process passed off peacefully.
Ruddington Parish Council (RPC) tells us it has already scheduled another cleansing of the field and play area – with workers due to arrive to clean up the site at around 10am tomorrow (Tuesday).
The frustrations of the authorities have been echoed by those of local residents – with some taking to social media to claim negligence by RPC for not putting in better security measures after the last incursion by travellers in early July.
Graeme Chessum said: “The Parish Council is 100% to blame for this! They should have secured the field properly after the last occurrence and made it physically impossible to get vehicles onto the land.” Gareth McManus agreed: “How have they got back on? Serious failings in the security and safe keeping of our land by the Parish Council.” Pip Hodgman added: “We should just put huge boulders in front of the gate like Ruddington Lane has done. The fact they have just driven back on and appear to have more rights than people who live here makes me so very angry.” Alistair Middleton posted: “I’ve been to see the Parish Council this morning. The Bailiffs are costing £2.5k plus the clean up, etc. So that’s twice this cost with last time’s travellers ‘visit’!”
However RPC told us new security measures WERE put into place: “Welding had been carried out at Sellors’ after the last incident (pictured right) to prevent the gate being removed again. We had also secured it with a padlock on the outside of the gate and a bike ‘D’ lock on the inside of the gate. On Friday the bike lock was removed as we had a contractor coming to cut the hedges; he had been issued with the padlock key. Within 10 mins of the bike lock being removed the travellers arrived and removed the padlock. We are looking to increase security at all of our sites and steps were already underway to achieve this.”
It should also be noted that the Parish Council reacted very swiftly to secure the latest eviction order. Despite the travellers only arriving at lunchtime on Friday, the legal instruction for them to leave today was delivered later that afternoon. And resident Jonny Gutteridge has defended our Parish Council saying: “I have to disagree the PC carry 100% of the blame. Let’s not excuse trespass on a children’s play area during the school holidays. The PC is no doubt doing its best with current resources, and will learn from this.”
After the final travellers were evicted at around 9pm this evening, RPC officials were standing by to secure the field as best they could – saying they will look to increase the security of the site temporarily until permanent measures can be put into place.
Pending another clean-up, Ruddington families will now have to wait just a little longer to make sure their local recreation ground and play area will be fit for them to use again.
UPDATE: TUE 14th AUG 12.45pm
Ruddington Parish Council has just told us that Sellors’ Recreation Ground and play area has now been cleaned and tidied, and reopened to the public.
