Car park camps cost Council thousands

Caravans parked in the two car parks at Dewsbury railway station last Wednesday, eventually consolidating into the smaller left hand section.

On Friday they began to leave the railway station and by Monday morning the upper section of Cliffe Street car park was full of travellers’ vans and caravans.

A court hearing will take place at Huddersfield County Court on Monday, when Kirklees Council will apply for a possession order to have the travellers evicted.

Those proceedings will cost Kirklees between £1,000 and £1,250, including court fees and council officers’ time.

Already, the council has lost between £1,000 and £1,5000 in potential revenue as a result of the travellers being parked in the car parks at the train station, with another £100 potentially lost from Cliffe Street car park.

On top that, there is the cost of cleaning up after the travellers – two staff spent two hours tidying the railway station car parks after they left, though a council spokeswoman said the area had been left in a reasonably tidy condition.

By the time Monday’s court proceedings come around, the travellers will have been in Cliffe Street for a week.

Posting on the Reporter Facebook page, Andrew Haigh said: “If you or I parked up and didn’t pay we’d be fined. Why is it one rule for them and another for the rest of us?”

Kirklees has said previously that it has to chase travellers through the courts as trespassers if it wants to get them evicted. If it issued parking tickets to the travellers, that would authorise them staying in the car park and could prevent any eviction.