Further to this mornings post, I have since spoken with both Council officers and the Havering Park Police team about the situation. I have included below a copy of an e-mail from Havering Council Parks Manager, updating me on the current situation.
The Police and Council Officers have now informed me that an evection notice will be served today under Section 77 of the Criminal justice public order act, which gives the travellers 48 hours to leave the site.
Copy of e-mail:
Dear Cllr Mann
thank you for your email and your justifiable concerns on this matter. Officers from the Parks and Open Spaces Section, the Mobile Patrol and a large number of police attended the site yesterday afternoon within minutes of the travellers pulling into the park.
The police examined the padlock to the barrier on the field the travellers entered and confirmed it had be broken to allow entry. I asked the mobile patrol to place another padlock on the gate. As there were no witnesses to the gate being broken the police said that they could not take any action. The police have logged all of the vehicle number plates and taken addresses from the travellers.They gave addresses in Surrey.
The objective no is to ensure that we get them out of the park as quickly as possible and then to clean up any mess they leave behind them to return the park to normal as quickly as possible.
I will leaise with officers in other areas of the council to ensure this happens as quickly as possible.
Looking at the layout of Bedfords Park I cannot see any precautions that we could take to prevent this happening again. We need to allow the pubic into the park, we also need to provide access to the large machinery that is stored the depot at the site, so placing width restrictions or height restrictions at the entrance point would not be a workable answer. Given that entry was forced to the barrier on the field I believe the same thing would happen with most other methods we could use.
I will be visiting the site later this morning with Planning Enforcement to commence the process of removing the travellers from the site. I have been told the quickest that we could get them off the site would probably be Monday. This assumes that they do not respond to the initial notice that we will be looking to serve on them either today or tomorrow.
I will ensure that you are kept informed of progress on this matter.
Best wishes
Martin Stanton
The Police and Council Officers have now informed me that an evection notice will be served today under Section 77 of the Criminal justice public order act, which gives the travellers 48 hours to leave the site.
Copy of e-mail:
Dear Cllr Mann
thank you for your email and your justifiable concerns on this matter. Officers from the Parks and Open Spaces Section, the Mobile Patrol and a large number of police attended the site yesterday afternoon within minutes of the travellers pulling into the park.
The police examined the padlock to the barrier on the field the travellers entered and confirmed it had be broken to allow entry. I asked the mobile patrol to place another padlock on the gate. As there were no witnesses to the gate being broken the police said that they could not take any action. The police have logged all of the vehicle number plates and taken addresses from the travellers.They gave addresses in Surrey.
The objective no is to ensure that we get them out of the park as quickly as possible and then to clean up any mess they leave behind them to return the park to normal as quickly as possible.
I will leaise with officers in other areas of the council to ensure this happens as quickly as possible.
Looking at the layout of Bedfords Park I cannot see any precautions that we could take to prevent this happening again. We need to allow the pubic into the park, we also need to provide access to the large machinery that is stored the depot at the site, so placing width restrictions or height restrictions at the entrance point would not be a workable answer. Given that entry was forced to the barrier on the field I believe the same thing would happen with most other methods we could use.
I will be visiting the site later this morning with Planning Enforcement to commence the process of removing the travellers from the site. I have been told the quickest that we could get them off the site would probably be Monday. This assumes that they do not respond to the initial notice that we will be looking to serve on them either today or tomorrow.
I will ensure that you are kept informed of progress on this matter.
Best wishes
Martin Stanton
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