To tell the travellers...

[Starbuck999]

By my parents house to please fuck off?

Story is, my parents and their neighbours all clubbed together to buy a lovely piece of land that their terrace of houses over looks. None of them are rich and it was a large buy for them all but they all keep is beautifully and it is a lovely view for them all to enjoy, it's only a small patch of land, not what one could consider to be a field even. i think they have (had) plans to make it a play area for all the local children, or a sports field or something similar.

4 weeks ago, overnight, a few caravans appeared. Of course the residents went to speak to them to say it was private land (which they already knew as there are huge "private" signs all round it and they actually smashed down a large section of the fencing to drive their caravans in.) But the travellers refused to budge. They were very matter of fact and reasonably polite about the fact that they would not be moving and they knew the residents couldnt do anything to make them move right away. Lovely.

Now, whilst I fully appreciate anyone's right to live how they want, surely it should not be at the expense of others. It must be wonderful to live such a free life, moving from place to place if that is what you choose, but how can you not expect to pay? Caravans sites cost say £25 a night, they should be paying to stay in one, or buy their own land and live there.

The field is now horrendous. More and more caravans have been moved in, I'd say there's no about 20. There are huge piles of broken up crates, broken buggies, televisions etc and massive piles of general hosehold rubbish and food waste in black bags that have been split open by foxes I presume all round the edge of the land. It's starting to look like a landfill site!

I don't have the full details but basically the residents have been told nothing can be done to get rid of them right away, it will take time through the courts. Then they will be moved on. That's all that will happen. Now If I parked my car somewhere illegal it would be clamped, towed and I'd have a hefty fine - why doesn't the same apply?

AIBU?

Well, I haven't done that, Beer. Have been on this thread all day and have kept discussing the people in the OP.

I am sure the caravan club of Great Britain would make them all very welcome Beer!!

Milly, there's no need to lecture me about racism.

Well there clearly is expat, since you believe racism is all about skin pigmentation.

It's all in the mind, see, Expat and Milly can detect your racist thoughts and moods and even vague feelings over t'Internet.

'Well there clearly is expat, since you believe racism is all about skin pigmentation.'

That's funny, Milly, because I specifically wrote that *

I know, moony. Every single word has to be analysed for potentially non-PC content and corrected accordingly.

WTF?

I'd be pissed off if someone did this on my property whoever they are.

Expat, you used your experience to comment on someone else's. I am not lecturing - I am just pointing out the law. The law isn't there to reflect your experience or my experience. It is there to try and find fair solutions for everyone, so that when it really matters - in real life situations, it isn't left to a debate between people like me and you. It is sorted out in a way that is fair and democratic, and reflects international expertise and takes into account the historical situations of ethnic groups.

I used my experience for FA regarding comment about someone else's. YOU are the one who continues to pick every word of my posts apart to try to illustrate I know not what, nor do I particularly care because your singling me out is starting to wear very thin as I have done nothing but stick to the topic here, which is Starbuck's parents and people trespassing on the land.

But again, continue lecturing, scolding, etc. You seem to have a real need to do so.

Expat, I am not picking your posts apart. I only referred to one remark you made.

My points have been about the law in general. I certainly am not accusing you of being racist. I can see that by discussing the law in posts where I also mentioned a point you made, it could easily look as if I was singling you out in particular rather than making a general point. I am sorry that I have been annoying by doing so.

I believe you can only stay on private land for 28 nights max in a caravan, even your own garden, hence council-run sites are the only legal place travellers can live.

I think it's bollocks to provide unrelated anecdotes about how badly behaved travellers can be. I don't agree with the term racist in regards to travellers, but it's offensive to bunch any group of people together imo, whether it's teenagers, poor people, bankers or travellers. We all have our prejudices opinions already, it's not helpful to share and has already caused offence.

The OP needs practical assistance - there's a couple of police bods on here, what's the quickest way to resolve the situation with minimum hassle your parents and neighbours? Seems absurd that the plice can't just come and kick them off, they're on private land without permission.

I think the most frightening thing on this thread was the stuff along the lines of 'the modern world can't accommodate these people'. Does the phrase 'ethnic cleansing' mean anything to you?

Land cleansing might be more appropriate.

Yes, effectively, the law lets them. They move on somewhere else, and it's all the same to them. Trespass law is complex, and they have as much of a right to use loopholes and general vagaries in the law as any solid citizen Oliver Goldsmith tax accountant does.

SGB, ethnic cleansing would seem to be the preferred option for a lot of posters here.

Mind you, I have heard similar sentiments expressed on the subject of British stag parties in Dublin a few years back. The anecdote about the Appleby Horse Fair brought that particular phenomenon to mind.

"The stag parties were properly disgusting: several hundred men in Temple Bar on weekend nights and no idea what litter bins were for, rubbish everywhere. They were hostile and unpleasant to each other and us (we were distinguished by being the only ones who were sober at any time), and there was very little evidence of any interest in the supposed wedding connection. Out of hundreds of men, a handful were respectful to the native Dubliners and the rest were loud and obnoxious to the hotel and bar and restaurant owners who served them (!) The whole scene was a miserable testament to debauchery with heaps of human excrement, and puke literally flowing in the gutters.

One guy fell trying to board a bus and had clearly sustained a massive head wound and they just kept trampling over him, literally. My sister and I went to tell a garda that someone was seriously hurt and then the crowds wouldn't move out of the way for the ambulance or stop the wild partying and public urinating. Seriously, they were horrible people. And it took well over an hour to get out of the city and away to a bus stop that wasn't reeking of barfed up beer as they all just seemed to congregate there at the end of the day and seemed to have no concept of queueing."

Well the bit about queueing doesn't hold up, on reflection, because even when completely polluted out of their minds, the queueing instinct remains, it seems. And orderly queueing is one of the hallmarks of civilisation....

The OP is not being unreasonable. I would be highly pissed off if someone came on my property and caused vandalism and crime.

But I think the thread has moved on from the OP, and all Travellers are being grouped as one bunch of thick criminals with no heritage.

Fuck that. My great grandparents were murdered in the Holocaust. Don't tell me we haven't been the victim of racism. Don't say we're not an ethnic group. And yes I do speak a different language, Moondog, not a dialect.

Thank you to some of the posters who understand that not everyone who travels a)has the same background and b)are evil nasty criminals.

Good post, Grendelsmum. I'm going to repeat here because it doesn't seem to have got the note it deserved.

First, I'm sorry OP for your parents' experience. My grandfather has suffered similar with one particular group of travellers living in his wood and stealing his firewood and it's pretty unpleasant.

But, the bigger picture for a moment.

1. Many groups of travellers and gypsies suffered horribly in the Holocaust. They continue to suffer discrimination today across Europe - look, for example, at the Roma currently being forcibly evicted from France, having had all their caravans and possessions confiscated.

2. Many gypsies have a deep rooted aversion to 'bricks and mortar' that can only be likened to a severe phobia - for many, the suggestion that they should live in a house like everyone else (as one poster suggested) would be cruel and demeaning.

3. Until the 1980s, all Councils had a legal obligation to ensure that there were enough council-owned sites for travellers and gypsies in their area. The previous Tory government saw fit to abolish that requirement. Needless to say, with other demands on their finances, facilities for gypsies (who are poorer and often non-voting) were one of the first things to be scrapped.

The outcome is that we no longer have enough sites in the UK for the traveling population and have not had for more than 20 years. That means that every night some families have no choice but to break the law - there AREN'T ENOUGH LEGAL SITES.

So, if that was you, trying to bring up your family, could you honestly say - hand on heart - that you would never, ever break the law to give your family somewhere to live? Because I think that after so many years of deprivation I would.

No, I wouldn't break the law, because it's not right (and also doesn't tie in with the strict moral code we're being led to believe they adhere to), and why leave filth on the site when you vacate it? Are you saying they are simply incapable of putting their rubbish in black bags and taking it to the local council tip?

And if you really believe that legal sites are the answer, you may want to speak to Ediburgh City Council (a Labour run Council, as they all are and mostly always have been in Scotland) and Lothian and Borders Police for their experiences of legal sites. And spare us please "it's the fault of the Tories" bleat - Labour were in power for how many years in the UK? Did they reinstate that requirement on Councils to provide legal sites? No? Really? I wonder why..

I think the problem, IMO, is not the living on the land (sorry OP) but the destruction of property such as the fence, and the huge piles of rubbish.

Someone said (sorry - can't trawl to find it) that they had travellers near them and they put their rubbish out with other's dustbins and treated the land with respect.

I think that's one of the main problems in OP - that they have wilfully driven over fence and broken it and are leaving there rubbish on the site and causing chaos like that.

The problem though is that so many of us have had bad experiences with them - but very few good experiences - and it's that which forms the basis of personal opinion, just as with everything else.