EARLIER this year, Harlow, just twenty five miles up the road from Thurrock had a major problem with a number of illegal traveller encampments.
As our sister paper is www.yourharlow.com, we reported on the controversy on, at one stage, a daily basis.
The problem there stemmed from several families being evicted from their land in Epping.
For eighteen months, a game of cat and mouse ensued. Travellers move onto land, relevant body issue eviction notice, travellers move onto next parcel of land.
It became a political football. MP Robert Halfon (Cons) always took the police action (or perceived lack of action) with a pinch of salt stating: "If they parked on the chief constable’s front garden, would we see the same reaction? I think not."
Harlow Council ended up successfully petitioning the courts for an injunction against 65 named persons from encamping on 400 individual plots of land. For a few months, the paper injunctions could be seen all over the town. The full court case is set for later this year.
And so, we turn to Thurrock and the recent incursions in both Thurrock and Chadwell St Mary.
We do not claim to be experts but this is how we see things.
The central requirement is for a change in legislation. A change, similar to laws in the Republic of Ireland that simply (as we understand) make such encampment illegal.
With an overall Tory majority, that might happen. But until then, everything is smoke and mirrors, sound and fury.
Council and police bashing is easy to do but it may not really help.
The police are in a difficult position, not made any easier by having their manpower decimated. So they may have to make strategic decisions, that is to say, it is a wet Friday afternoon, you have about ten men on covering a borough of 160,000, they have jobs rolling in from road traffic, burglaries, domestic abuse and mental health.
Are they really going to prevent a traveller convoy from illegally encamping?
There is a desire from much of the public for some good old boy Texas state line policing to kick in. That is not going to happen.
Essex Police have been criticised by Thurrock MP, Jackie Doyle-Price. She has said: "There are relevant laws that could be used to tackle this issue including laws on trespass, highways and antisocial behaviour."
She might be right and might point to the mile long fly-tip in Purfleet that Essex Police seemed to have missed as well.
But as we said, no Police Inspector, with hopes for promotion, is going to start arresting travellers (technically NO Fixed Abode), placing kids in care etc.
The police and come commissioner, Nick Alston has dusted down his book of platitudes and said: "A problem displaced is not a problem solved" and has also urged police to use all their powers. Al this confuses us, as on the occasions, he says he cannot "intervene" in operational matters.
Thurrock Tories set down a motion in March, looking to follow Harlow’s lead. But Harlow’s lead in what? Harlow’s situation is very specific with a large number of named people cited in an injunction.
The wider public get very frustrated and suspect that a blind eye is "deployed" by the authorities. They find it remarkable that the police and council are nowhere to be seen or find it nigh on impossible to find a culprit when a fence is broken, a gate forced, a person defecates in public, rubbish is left strewn. They then look at incidents of a mum being fined for dropping a cigarette, a man being fined for hi dig poking in Chafford, the menacing letters after one or two council tax payments missed or being fined in a car park for not parking in the right spot. Many say, quite right to the last four examples but then let us see such robust approaches to anti-social behaviour to travellers as well.
So, in conclusion, nearly every body involved here may well be reading off a well rehearsed script. Probably, nothing will be done until legislation is introduced, in parliament. So, don’t hold your breath……
