Caravans left on a street near a children’s playground should be moved, a councillor has said.
Conservative councillor Anne Meadows spoke out about caravans parked for long periods at the bottom of Carden Hill, near the Old Boat Corner Community Centre
Councillor Meadows, who represents Patcham and Hollingbury, said that she and her colleagues were told that, despite applying for a court order to remove the caravans, Brighton and Hove City Council was reluctant to take the necessary steps.
In a written question to Labour councillor Trevor Muten, the council’s cabinet member for transport, Councillor Meadows said that the council was reluctant to move the caravans because of possible storage costs.
She said: “We were told that ‘ultimately, although these activities are co-ordinated through community safety, as it’s the landowners / stewards, parks or highways, who cover the costs of this, they make the ultimate decision on the removal of these vehicles’.
“Clearly this policy, if true, will only make illegal parking more prevalent. Why can’t the council simply enforce the removal of caravans and tents from illegal sites following a court order?
“This lack of enforcement may be leading to tents being pitched illegally across the city.”
Hollingbury is one of the few areas of Brighton where residents’ parking restrictions are not in force.
There are caravans parked long term in Carden Hill, Ditchling Road and Carden Avenue.
Councillor Muten said that the council had issues with occupied vehicles across Brighton and Hove and was working with the community safety teams to deal with unauthorised encampments and van dwelling.
He said: “This strategy will be brought to a future cabinet meeting and will include how we work together across the council to address unauthorised encampment, balancing our support to vulnerable people with our enforcement duties.
“Before officers can remove these vehicles, they require the necessary court authorisation / documentation to move.
“Often the requisite authorisation is sufficient to instigate removal. However, where this is not forthcoming, officers are limited in the next steps.
“The cost to remove these vehicles is significant and even more problematic is the required storage costs. If they are simply moved to another part of the city, this affects any legal rights to move the vehicles a second time.”
By the looks of some of these vehicles, they need to be scrapped not stored. The occupants, (if any) housed appropriately.
The majority of the occupants are not vulnerable but choose to follow a certain lifestyle. They generally only interact with wider society to claim benefits without contributing. The authorities should look at different approaches such as ASBO’s or community actions to move them out. This covers the whole of Brighton & Hove and does not require repeated applications to court. The political will is not there because it will “only mean shifting the problem and we are a city of sanctuary.” Well let’s get real, I don’t want to subsidise their choices when it impacts negatively on the wider community and costs money whilst ruining the vistas.
Interesting idea, claiming benefits without contributing. Let’s use that yardstick for all children, pensioners and members of House of Lords who sign in for daily allowances but never actually do anything. It’s hard to imagine people living like this if decent affordable secure homes were available in the places where people feel safe, accepted and able to make a living.
I’ve only ever spoken to one van dweller who lived in an ambulance she parked outside my house. She was educated, reasonable, had a job as a nanny for a family in the street, but just couldn’t afford a home. She was clever enough to find a work around, so she was making a contribution by enabling a local family to work and care for their children during a very challenging time of bereavement. Sounds like our problem, not theirs. I write this from my cosy mortgage free home.
Pensioners have contributed to Society and paid their dues into the coffers. Children don’t normally get benefits but Society invests in its future by educating and enabling them to become productive. You give one anecdotal account and I know people who prefer the freedom that van-living can give whilst working and being productive. However I don’t know any pensioners outside of the Traveller community that maintain that way of life. My experience of the HoL is with working peers and they contribute by holding the lower chamber and temporary government to account through a series of checks and balances.
My observation was with regards to these ragtag collective who seek to take from the wider community without paying any contributions.
Actually plenty of pensioners never contributed and now get handouts from the system they never paid into, mostly self employed as there was never any forced contribution like today, bit of a joke really, builders not paying the £1 per week as was back then, and not just builders
Toe them and crush them after 20 days of not claimed. Only needs to be a deterrent for a short period of time and people will get the message. As for the tents, they are far to soft on them, hence why they come back year after year, other cities just claim trespass and remove them within the day they go up.
There are many parts of Brighton that look like shanty towns. In Coldean we have caravan encampments to the north and south of us. Recently a van appeared near a pathway and a fire was started in the nearby woods. Anarchy. Why does the council allow our once proud town to descend into a grubby, grungy free for all?
I wonder how many of these people have applied for council housing and been refused? Could this be the real reason they are not moved? Council housing only for the right people in need springs to mind. People got to live somewhere and the fight to survive is obviously strong with these people.
I Love having hunky men living by my house. Rough and Ready.
I’ve seen people defecating by their caravan behind a wind breaker on Carden Hill. These people need moving, for our children’s safety. Public indecency orders need to be given out by police.
Facilities are provided for Irish travellers, are these people not the right sort of travellers to be afforded decency like the Irish travellers get?
This has been a great advertisement to others, since this article was published more vehicles and vans have arrived on Carden Hill, one with a wind turbine attached to a caravan held together by ratchet straps. I wonder if the council would be inclined to let these vans stay if they were in seven dials or five ways, maybe Hollingbury and Patcham aren’t the most prestigious areas of Brighton but this is our local area that are being let down by the council.
For anyone interested in resolving this issue (legally) I have set up a WhatsApp group.
https://chat.whatsapp.com/H2pXbrb6pdaHx1qPnFtEw1?mode=wwt