Forgive me if I sound racist or intolerant but I have a problem with travellers who think they can set up camp anywhere they choose then play the race card when people complain.
I don't have a problem with travellers and I'm not intending to generalise but there are groups who think they can live outside the rules of society.
In the last year I know of groups who have camped on two children's play areas in Hull plus one group who camped on a school playing field at Clayton in Bradford and another who camped on the land around a Centotaph in a nearby village (they reckoned that they didn't know what it was).
This weekend a group arrived in Skegness and, because the council had put in height barriers to stop them using the beach front car parks like they did last year, they camped in the coach park.
I'm sorry that they feel hard done by but then so do people who own the land they choose to camp on. The school in Clayton had to pay for the land to be cleared after they'd been evicted. It has to be done by specialists due to the types of waste matter that are dumped. Then they had to pay for the entrances to the field to be blocked.
I have a caravan. If I pulled up and camped on land just because it was where I fancied stopping I would, quite rightly, be turfed off by the land owner or the police.
I have no problem with their lifestyle. In fact DH and I have been thinking for a long time about living in our caravan and moving around but we would use campsites.
The travellers complain that there aren't enough places for them to stop but tbh I have little sympathy for that argument. They choose that lifestyle and have to deal with the problems that arise from their choices just as we deal with problems that arise from our choices.
