Gloucester City Council has outlined its procedure for what happens when public land is illegally occupied.
When travellers do arrive on a site that isn’t authorised for use as a camping site, officers are tasked with making contact with them and carrying out a welfare check.
Because there are no transit sites in Gloucester, the city council has a process for moving them on, which it has outlined below. There are privately owned sites elsewhere in the county.
An assessment of Gypsy and traveller accommodation in 2016 did not identify any specific needs for a transit site in Gloucestershire.
It did however recommend that this is reviewed within three years.
Gloucester City Council is working with other local authorities in Gloucstershire to prepare this review.
A spokesperson for Gloucester City Council said: “When travellers illegally occupy public land, an officer from Gloucester City Council would attend the site to carry out a welfare check and if appropriate, serve a section 77 notice which tells them to leave the area immediately.
“If they remained, a court order would be obtained and bailiffs instructed to move them on.
“As soon as the site is vacated, we would secure it and arrangement for it to be cleaned.”
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Gloucester City Council’s procedure for unauthorised use of land by travellers
If a group of travellers pitched illegally, the next steps would depend on whether it was private or public land.
If private land, it would be up to the landowner to determine what they wanted to do and take the necessary action.
If public land, there is a process for moving them on and this is outlined below.
- When travellers arrive on land illegally – we would put our Legal team on notice that their assistance may be required.
- An officer would then draft a Section 77 Notice (CJPO Act 1994). This informs the travellers that they are trespassing and should leave immediately. The notice states that It is a criminal offence not to leave the land as soon as practicable, or return within 3 months (Section 77 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994).
- An officer would attend the site to carry out a Welfare Assessment and if appropriate serve the Section 77 Notice at the same time.
- Once this is done, we would inform Legal that service of the (S77 Notice) has been carried out and instruct them to apply for a summons from the Magistrates Court.
- An officer would then attend the site to serve the summons (once obtained from Court) to the Travellers.
- We would then attend Court with a Solicitor to obtain a court order to remove the Travellers from our land.
If successful with the court application, we would instruct bailiffs to evict the travellers off our land. Once this is completed and the site is secured we would begin the clearing/cleaning process.
