'Unwelcome' travellers return to Walsall's Delves Common
Travellers have set up camp on Delves Common again — just days after a group was ordered to leave the site.
Caravans arrived on the site on Sunday evening, following the removal of another group.
It comes after a group of travellers, not known to be the same, pitched up on the same site opposite Delves Junior School, in Bell Lane, The Delves, last week.
Palfrey councillor Mohammed Nazir said: "We had just finished cleaning up the site and this return is most unwelcome.
"It is quite concerning to me that this has happened a few days after we moved another group of travellers along.
"I think at this point it is becoming a situation which we need to properly address.
"The common is an area for families and people to use for leisure, especially in the summer time.
"If the community are concerned about travellers being on the site they aren't going to use it and that is a shame.
"We could look at putting up fencing to make sure it doesn't happen again but that costs money and it may not benefit the common.
"We will look at solutions."
The playing fields at the common recently underwent a £400,000 upgrade to clean up the once contaminated land.
The borough has been plagued by traveller camps in recent years, with the cost of clearing up sites after moving travellers on reaching £70,000 for 2015.
Popular locations have included Goscote Lodge Crescent, Delves Common and Broadway West Playing Fields.
Walsall Council had to move along travellers and clean up after them on 85 occasions in 2015 – up from just 14 the previous year.
Council officers have now told travellers at Delves Common to move on.
Lorraine Boothman Walsall Council's regulatory services manager, said: "There have been several reports made to us about an unauthorised encampment at this location.
"Council Officers, accompanied by the police, visited the site on Monday and issued notices to the occupants to vacate the land."
