Travellers and their caravans are currently proving to be a major headache for Bradford. They have taken up residence in recent weeks at various illegal sites around the district. When court action is taken against them they move on, only to set up camp elsewhere immediately.

Every move is at a double cost to the landowners (usually Bradford Council): the legal expenses for securing a court order to repossess the land; plus the expenses incurred in cleaning up the mess left behind.

There is an additional, incalculable cost when the caravans move in alongside commercial premises, as they did recently in the car park of Arnold Laver and as they have now done on land opposite the Forster Square Retail Park. It is the cost of damage to the image, and consequently the trade, of the businesses affected.

The present framework of legislation seems inadequate to deal with people who choose to pursue a nomadic lifestyle and have little regard for the laws of trespass. Those affected become involved in disputes over whose responsibility it is, as has happened at Transperience where the Council says that while it is responsible for maintaining a closed, adopted road, it is up to the property owners to close it and deny the caravans access to the site.

This piecemeal approach to the problem is most unsatisfactory. It should not be left to local authorities to do the best they can with the inadequate laws available. It needs a national approach to work out a way of letting the travellers pursue their lifestyle while not being such a persistent thorn in the side of the wider community.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.