Travellers told to move by council

2:37pm Friday 5th September 2008

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TRAVELLERS living on green belt land have been given a council ultimatum: move to another site or face legal action.

In 2006 eight families set up a site on farm land in White Post Lane, at the edge of Sole Street.

Although one of the families owns the land, it was illegal for them to set up a site because the land's green belt status outlaws any development.

Gravesham Council took the travellers to court to get them removed.

But the court hearing was adjourned after an agreement was reached for the families to move somewhere else in October this year.

Gravesham Council leader Councillor Mike Snelling said: "There has been considerable local consternation over the travellers' site on green belt land at the edge of Sole Street village.

"It has always been our position that we cannot countenance ad hoc development in the green belt. We have an agreement with them to leave the land and we are seeking to ensure this happens."

Since the agreement was reached in 2006, Gravesham Council has searched the borough for a new location for the travellers site.

It chose land near the new north Kent police station in Northfleet and wrote to the travellers earlier this year to offer it to them.

The council is still waiting for the travellers to accept the offer but it has submitted a planning application for the proposed new site, which the council would continue to own.

It has also contacted the families in the current site to explain that legal action will be taken against them if they do not begin to move by October.

Cllr Snelling said part of the agreement between the council and the travellers was that "they leave the existing site as they found it".

This means the travellers have to remove the block paving and fences they installed and restore the site back to farm land.

None of the people living at the travellers site were available to comment.