Burnham-On-Sea’s MP has this week met the Chairman of the town’s BASC sports ground to discuss concerns over groups of travellers pitching up there.
MP James Heappey met the club’s Russ Pike on Monday (August 10th) to discuss what is being done to resolve the issue.
The MP told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “Ever since I’ve been the MP for Burnham and Highbridge it’s been a recurring theme that travellers come and make illegal encampments.”
“More often than not they have been in public car parks and so a lot of work has been done by Sedgemoor District Council on how we can move them on very quickly and they are now very good at that.”
“Of late, though, we’ve had a number of illegal encampments on private land here at the Burnham Area Sports Club and more recently down at the Football Club next to the Bay Centre and that’s a different challenge because it’s private land and that brings with it a different set of challenges for the Police and Courts.”
“So I believe it is important to come and speak to the club chairman to find out how that process works for them.”
“The main effort is to try and change the law and that’s something I’ve been working on for a while in Parliament to bring about the law of illegal trespass. That’s going to take some time and Covid has slowed down the legislative programme but that will make a massive difference.”
“In the mean time I have spent working out how the council, the private landowners and the police can work together to move on these illegal encampments more quickly because the people of Burnham and Highbridge are absolutely fed up that there are one set of rules for travellers and one set of rules for everybody else.”
Russ Pike, Chairman of the BASC ground, told Burnham-On-Sea.com after Monday’s meeting: “I found the meeting very informative and helpful. The work James has been doing to form a law against illegal encampments is very reassuring and this is in process. It will be in place roughly six months down the line.”
“I wasn’t sure how the chat we had would go, but we had a very straight and honest chat man-to-man. I was very pleased with that and the answers I got from James.”
“I had received a lot of people’s opinions before this meeting about the travellers and James himself, but I have to say that James has got our best interests in mind and is working hard to get the traveller situation sorted.”
The meeting comes after several visits to the BASC sports ground by groups of travellers, as reported here.
