AIBU to find it disgusting that gypsies have taken over a school playground

[Adizzylass2014]

whilst attending my best friends wedding today in a little village I was horrified to see that gypsies had taken over the school playground. There was rubbish all over the floor, children and dogs running all over the place and scantily clad women puffing away.
why a school playground, these people have no morals. The poor caretaker is going to have his work cut out for him as there was at least 15 caravans!

What chance have they got, google objections to traveller sites and see how many plans for legal sites and resting places have been cancelled, this is just one here out of tons of pages. It seems legal sites were identified as the way forward to stop illegal encampments and provided the pitches identified as lacking. Seems like many have been rejected due to the local communities not wanting them there. The only way to solve it is to make legal sites which are maintained to a higher standard than illegal encampments they are forced to live on on a temp basis knowing people are actively working to remove them and not knowing where they will end up next. Imagine being told time and time again we don't want you here because you are dirty, thieve's, vandals etc etc so move on but to where? cant travel as no resting stops, cant park up as no legal sites!

Jimmy Savile. Fred West. Peter Sutcliffe. White people with jobs and settled homes are not expected to 'speak out against' those individuals as a way of escaping any kind of shared guilt for belonging to the same 'class' (of white people with jobs and homes) as them. We're not held collectively responsible for Nick Griffin or Nigel Farage or Margaret Thatcher's destruction of social housing, either.

YY SGB. I feel no connection to any of these people being spoken about, I find it difficult to imagine how anyone could even think to picture them when I mention that I have Romany ancestry - why would I ever agree to the idea that I'm obliged to 'speak out' about them, just to avoid being discriminated against in any way?

Though I understand that I'm probably a lot less at risk of discrimination than someone brought up with a connection to the culture.

"Re Dale farm, my understanding was that the land was owned by the travelling community, but planning permission was refused by the local council for a travellers site (as it usually is once the fact the site if for travellers not a holiday park)."

Look, the reason that travelers' PP applications by travellers fail is that:

a) The land tends to be green belt land.

b) Most such applications are retrospective. Ie, they did not go through all the proper procedures and just moved in on a site (usually in the green belt). Once you have done this, your chances of getting permission are almost nil, esp. if damage to trees and wildlife have been caused, as if very often the case. The reason why most travelers go for green belt land is due to its cheaper price.... but the whole reason why GB land is cheap is because its price is based on the assumption that it cannot be used for building on, because it is v hard to build on GB land.

c) Most PP applications by non-travellers are things like, a bloke wants to put up a conservatory on his land, which causes no particular burden on anyone. Most travelers' applications are for building communities where people will live. This involves a bit more than just a roof with some walls around it. It involves thinking about sewerage and water, electricity, rubbish collection, making sure that there are school places, sufficient capacity in hospitals.... the roads leaving to the settlement will probably need to be widened and repaired/maintained more frequently, street lighting.... etc. etc. etc. The LA may well not have the capacity to have the load of their community suddenly enlarged like this and have the job of paying for it all.

If you DON'T bother with any of the above, and just say "OK, travelers, we won't bother about making sure that there is the structural capacity to take you on and ensure decent living conditions.... never mind, you can all just move in anyway!"

....then you will wind up with slum-like conditions with no school places, with sewerage issues and disease outbreaks, with rubbish piling up, with dangerous illegal wiring, with the roads full of potholes... and then everyone will be screaming outrage about "OMG TRAVELERS ARE BEING FORCED TO LIVE IN HORRIFIC MEDIEVAL CONDITIONS!!!!" and just get upset about that instead.

Local authorities are being placed in an impossible situation here.

Such a long thread that there are not enough hours in the night to read it unfortunately, so excuse me if I am inopportune, but I just want to register my complaint about some of the blatant racism I have read on just the first page and particularly on the part of the OP.

As, fortunately enough, others have already pointed out, there are good and bad within every ethnic group, personally I have mostly had experience with decent travellers and with a lot of bigots who feel that it is perfectly acceptable to generalise about these ethnic groups.

Ellesmere Port council were going to develop a Gypsy site on a brown field site, but Peel Holdings own the adjoining land and are planning to build houses on it. They have put pressure on the council so it's now not going ahead.

If you don't know who Peel Holdings are google them.

Being protected from discrimination doesn't equal being free from criticism over unreasonable behaviour.
Obviously many travellers are not guilty of behaving in the ways described here, (in ways that a great number of people have been affected by btw)
But it's unhelpful, imo, to get precious about some of the generalisations made, unless theyre abusive in nature (and therefore unacceptable)
travellers are a race protected by the law as such, but Moving a community onto public or private land over which one has no claim and littering, and making local residents feel scared or intimidated is not uncommon and its not acceptable, and it is not carried out (and certainly not welcomed/ tolerated) by people from other races.

Jimmy Savile, Peter Sutcliffe don't compare, they were individuals, not a pattern of behaviour among groups of white people against other races. EDL/BNP is a pattern of behaviour among some groups of white people against other races and they are widely condemned by other white people.
The racism from the Chelsea supporters in Paris - massively condemned by other white people.
I never said travellers should be held responsible for other travellers' bad behaviour - I said travellers should hold those who behave badly responsible for damaging links with communities instead of blaming those communities who are frightened for being frightened.

Being protected from discrimination doesn't equal being free from criticism over unreasonable behaviour. Well put TheRealAmandaClarke.

I honestly think there are many MNers here who would have little strong feelings negatively if they hadn't been subjected to behaviour that had affected them. (Of course, there are bad 'uns in every community but some of these experiences are pretty awful. )

My experience -
My DD (quiet, bookish, naive) - second year of working at McDonalds in the holidays at very busy motorway service station. She was saving money to go to Uni. Just 18 yrs old. It was August Bank Holiday and manic, the queues were out the door.
In comes a group of female travellers/gypsies (no idea of my terminology is correct - to be frank, given my story, I don't really care.) They were intimidating, didn't want to queue, lots of swearing. Everyone in the queue did the usual English thing of looking the other way. My DD had the pleasure of serving them, but their accent was very strong, she couldn't understand them, kept having to ask them to repeat. That didn't go down well.

They were shoutng, swearing, calling my DD over 'how long was the fookin' burgers gonna be' etc. She kept saying the same (as she does to anyone in the queue) 'your order is in the queue, it will be as quick as we can'. They did not like it at all starting getting personal calling her a stuck up bitch etc. Manager comes out tells them to cool it, then goes into the back kitchen, all hends on deck.

Then... one of them in amongst all the swearing .. reaches over the counter and pulls my DD towards her and spits in her face. DD recoils in horror (obviously). Manager comes out, gets help, Police are in carpark anyway and in comes two policemen. DD is in the back really quite shaken up. Police speak to them, according to other staff friendly with my DD, they were just laughing and joking, then grabbed their order and went on their way without a care in the world.

My DD was traumatised, she was a month away from starting Uni, it affected her, and even now she can't really talk about it, she's internalised it. I honestly think if that had been someone other than travellers/gypsies, the Police would have taken it further. Whatever anyone says, the rules are different for them.

And agree with New Statesman, the reason most travellers' planning applications fail is the nature of them - dwellings on green belt.
Actually non-travellers who apply for dwellings on green belt land are likely to have had even higher failure rates because special dispensation was temporarily made for travellers while more permanent sites were sourced.
In fact I own a field (not even green belt land, previously developed) my Dad has parked a car there and we've been ordered to move it by planners. Is it because he's Asian? Or is it just the rules?

Rousette poor kid. That sounds awful.

The thing is, moving a large number of people onto common or private land, living in a place ill prepared for the need for refuse management etc, not paying tax on your earnings are all a nuisance, whether or not you are a polite, friendly, intelligent person.
So even without the awful examples of aggression given here, the very nature of being a traveller has a high potential for pissing people off.
I dont have the solutions for harmony though

People should play by the rules, and if they don't them it pisses me off. I don't care what colour race or freed they are, that is irrelevant. If someone is going to park in a playground and dump rubbish everywhere, then I don't like that, it pisses me off. If someone avoids taxes, why should I pay and they not. Why should my council tax increase hugely every year to partly compensate for those who don't pay. Why should I choose to drive on the road in an insured car but risk some twat hitting me in their uninsured car? Why do people think it is ok to spit in people's faces? Why do people think it is ok to bypass the rules? Live by the rules or fuck off elsewhere.

Or to put it another way (bear with me...), I think the answer to Muslim extremism has to come from Muslim communities, otherwise it will forever be seen as the West vs. Islam. That's not to say the Muslim community is responsible for extremism, or that they have to tackle it alone, but they must be a driving force for change.
And I think it's the same with travellers. If the majority of travellers would publicly condemn the minority who break the rules, help the police and victims of crime, I think things would change - but that's the one thing I haven't seen on this thread. Until then it will always be 'them' and 'us'.
Straighttothepoint - fair enough until you got to the "fuck off elsewhere" bit. Bit too "go back where you came from" for me.

Ifinishedthebiscuits. That was exactly my thoughts, I understand they are a close community and just wondered why they can't self-police a bit more.

They are not allowed to force entry. For example take posts down to allow access.

I was sexually assaulted aged 11 by a traveller boy. He told me that I wanted it as all gorja girls are 'easy' he probably wasn't much older than me.
This was over 30 years ago, it wasn't a serious assault and could have been much worse but I was a child and it has stayed with me.
Unfortunately bigotry exists on both sides.

Roussette,

Was there no CCTV (Macdonalds)? That's assault...

I did read that the last government instructed police not to press charges on travellers for 'minor' offences to avoid criminalising them, although wouldn't say your daughter's experience came under that bracket.

Making allowances doesn't do any minority any favours in the long run for many reasons.

IFinished I agree it wasn't minor, but to the Police it probably was... at the time, they were long gone, Police let them go, how on earth would they be found and would the Police actually actively pursue this? I don't think so. DD wanted to forget it - that was her way of getting over it, she was 18 and I had to respect her wishes. She was a month away from starting Uni - to pursue what happened just as she was leaving home would have had her under a cloud and maybe have spoilt Uni for her. We spent a lot of time together in that month before she went, I brought it up from time to time but she wanted to just forget it. I know it affected her though, a Mum can tell!

Agree on the not making allowances but unfortunately it does happen.

Happydays

You have me laughing hysterically.

Behind my house is a sports field formerly owned by the Education department of the county council, and used by the middle school on the other side of the road. It has padlocked gates.

By astonishing chance, year after year, some vandals cut the locks and chains off these gates in the early hours of the morning on a Sunday or Bank holiday. Within twenty minutes, by coincidence, about twenty travellers' vehicles happen to be passing, and notice the gates are open and unlocked, so they drive in and occupy the field for most of the summer.

Forced entry? Good heavens no, the gates were open when they arrived.

I'm fascinated as to how many of you go out in your towns on a Saturday night sorting out drunks and young men committing assaults. I'm guessing none of you but prove me wrong if you like! I've been on buses and tubes in London with abusive passengers and you take a big interest in your newspapers.
If a member of my family or friend did something bad of course I'd stand up to them but the idea I'm supposed to go around the country fighting Romany crime is frankly absurd.

I rarely go drinking in town. None of my close friends or family would get into a drunken fight. I have tried to stop drunken fights among strangers, and would act as a witness if someone was badly injured.
I've reported a couple from our community who have taken advantage of an elderly disabled man to social services/police.
I am considering reporting an elderly driver neighbour who I'm not sure is safe to drive any more.
Both of these could have repercussions for me but my priority is the victim/potential victims.

Being protected from discrimination doesn't equal being free from criticism over unreasonable behaviour

THIS ^^ I see the comments have started about "nobody else is expected to confront problems in their community" which conveniently ignores the outcry we see so often when other groups cause issues - BNP, paedophile groups, political parties, even the police are just a few examples

I think most reasonable people accept that it's wrong to condemn a whole group for the actions of some, but it would be nice to see appalling behaviour acknowledged instead of reading constant excuses ... and I'm still waiting to hear travellers' comments on the view taken within their own closed community if any members commit crimes against gorgers

These threads never fail to raise a wry smile with me. We get ten pages of people coming on to tell us about their negative experiences of living in close proximity to travellers, and then we get the inevitable posts saying 'just because you've had umpteen incidents of theft, violence, anti-social behaviour and mess left in your local playing fields don't go blaming the actions of a tiny minority onto a whole race of people.'

Well I'm not sure they ever were, were they? They were just telling us their experience of Travellers.

No-one 'demonises' a whole race, they just tell their experiences and you join up the dots. If you don't like the way they join up then don't shoot the messenger.

WindYourBobbinUp If you saw an unprovoked attack by a member of your community on a member of a white British settled community, and they were seriously injured, would you help the police? What if the innocent party died?
Because I certainly would if it was the other way round. (My community is predominantly white British.)
But I know of a case where a family never got justice because travellers closed ranks.
I do know of another recent case where travellers did help get justice for a non-traveller murder victim, wish this could become the norm.