Legal action to move a group of more than 20 travellers camped at Burnham-On-Sea’s BASC sports ground is set to begin today (Monday).
The travellers have been parked on the grassed area near the entrance to the playing fields in Stoddens Road since last Wednesday, prompting the cancellation of Saturday’s car boot sale.
Pete Lewis, BASC Chairman, told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “We will be starting legal proceedings to get them moved during Monday.”
“It appears that the Police do not have the resources to move them on, so legal action is the only course of action we can take.”
“We did give the travellers the benefit of the doubt and waited to see if they would leave by Saturday, as they’d told us. But they were not true to their word, so legal action will begin.”
A seperate group of travellers camped in Burnham’s Pier Street car park left that location on Friday evening, but left a considerable amount of rubbish by them, which had to be collected and taken away by Sedgemoor District Council’s clean surrounds team.
It comes as Police have been monitoring the travellers and their vehicles at the BASC Ground over the weekend, as pictured here. Officers say there is little they can do to move them because they are on private land.
Car boot sale organiser Paul Stewart told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “The travellers appear to have caused a lot of damage to our equipment, with crowd control barriers and plastic fencing damaged and twisted. It’s a right mess.”
“Regrettably, the car boot sale couldn’t go ahead and we apologise to our regular visitors – we had no option but to cancel. We hope to be back again next Saturday if they have gone.”
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Travellers force cancellation of car boot sale at Burnham sports ground
