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Travellers move in at west Leeds site
Travellers have found a new site in west Leeds as Leeds City Council attempts to ban them from the area.
Around 14 caravans parked up on grassland in Elder Road, Bramley, for the first time earlier this month, in Leeds’s most recent unauthorised traveller camp.
The move comes as council representatives attended Leeds County Court yesterday in a bid to ban traveller families from land in the Armley ward area by gaining Leeds’s second permanent injunction.
Coun Jim McKenna (Lab, Armley) said that nearby residents were “very upset” that travellers had moved on to the land when he met with them on Sunday.
He said: “My message for residents is we will move them on within the limits of the law and as quickly as we can.
“I said to them if they get together as a residents’ group and are looking for some protection for the land involved that given the council’s budget we will look to help them.”
The camp is the first time that travellers have parked up on the land, sparking fears a ban could force traveller sites to spring up elsewhere in the city.
Helen Jones, chief executive officer of Leeds Gypsy and Traveller Exchange, said: “Inevitably that’s going to happen. If you leave people with nowhere to go they will have to go somewhere else, it is a very short-sighted way to solve the problem.”
At present unauthorised sites are subject to civil law – eviction notices last just three months – but an injunction would make camps in Armley a criminal offence that could result in jail.
The council has been given £1m of government funding for 12 new permanent pitches in Leeds.
Ms Jones said: “It just doesn’t seem to add up. People can’t disappear and become invisible, they have got to be physically present somewhere.”
She said managing camps better would be the best solution.
A council spokeswoman said that officers are expecting to confirm a court date, where the council will seek an eviction notice on the land, at some point today.
The council’s attempt to gain an injunction to ban unauthorised traveller camps in Armley was adjourned until mid March.
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Weather for Leeds
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 8 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
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Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 22 C
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Wind direction: East
