Traveller camps outlawed from Dudley car park
Illegal travellers’ camps will no longer be moved onto Dudley’s Flood Street car park after protests from residents and traders with barriers now to go up.
Dudley Council chiefs have been using the car park as a holding site for caravans when they are evicted from other sites in the borough.
There have been travellers at the site for the last fortnight with more arriving over the weekend.
Councillor Shaukat Ali, who represents the St Thomas’s ward, said residents and traders were unhappy about the situation and had planned to stage a protest.
It was only called off when Councillor Ali said he received assurances from council chiefs that the car park would no longer be used as an emergency transit site for camps.
Councillor Ali said: “The leader sent me an a written under-taking that there will be no more incursions on Flood Street.
“I think there needs to be a transit site urgently found.
“To be using Flood Street car park is not appropriate. Residents are fed up with this keep happening.”
Deputy leader Councillor David Vickers said: “I know leader Patrick Harley has said the car park is not to be used again for this sort of thing. I believe they will block the entrance.”
The deadline for the nine caravans to move on from Flood Street has passed and now Dudley Council is trying to obtain an eviction order from court.
Councillor David Vickers, deputy leader of Dudley Council, said: “We are working to move the encampment at Flood Street on as soon as possible.
“We continue to do all we can to protect public land and this once again highlights the need to identify a temporary travellers’ site here in Dudley borough.”
The travellers were moved on to the car park by the council from elsewhere in the borough.
But this led to accusations from Councillor Ali the site was being used as a “make-shift transient camp”.
