Majority of Traveller group leaves Dane Park

There are just a few caravans left

A Traveller group that arrived at Dane Park on May 31 has started to leave today (June 5).

Around nine motorhomes remain out of the estimated 24 that were on site. The group had travelled from Hampshire and told ward councillor Gary Taylor that one of the children had tested positive for Covid.

During their stay there had been complaints of damage to the football pitches used by Thanet Colts – now merged with Ramsgate FC Youth team – due to quad bikes being driven, and spun, over the grounds.

However, the majority of the group left this evening and one resident says there ‘appears to be minimal rubbish’ left behind.

Thanet council doesn’t currently have Gypsy and Traveller provision. However, this has come under scrutiny following a huge rise in incursions from just two in 2013 to more than 50 last year.

Government guidelines are that to minimise risk during the national coronavirus emergency, unauthorised encampments should not be evicted.

Local authorities are encouraged to adopt a negotiated stopping approach for unauthorised encampments instead.

The Friends, Families and Travellers organisations says that in light of the known health inequalities within Gypsy and Traveller communities local authorities should take action that is based on the level of risk experienced by these groups.

Friends Families and Travellers have created guidance for people living roadside or on Traveller sites, including an audio version for people with low literacy.

24 Comments

    • They probably legged it when they heard ramsgate fc played there!! Worried there caravans would be knicked and sold to pay the players!! Thanet colt merge with ramsgate fc!! Should have tried ramsgate youth!! Head and shoulder above the fc clowns!!

  1. Are there public toilets open in Dane Park ? If not then where have they been going ? Presumably that will all need clearing up pretty quickly.

    • Laws don’t apply to certain members of the population. Quad biking in parks, and the not moving from Southampton when your child has Covid-19. Sort of thing are not important, if you choose lead a different life style. Perhaps they were just testing their eyesight before leaving. So laws broken. My mate Dominic told me.

      • You need to enjoy the cultural enrichment these people bring to the community. We must be diverse in accepting our differences & appreciating the human waste, vehicles being ridden around day & night destroying the football pitch, the intimidation, the threats, the rubbish left behind etc.

        Hopefully later on the two BLM movements will be blessing Margate/Cliftonville with their charm-I am sure the shopkeepers will be very happy if their closed stores get smashed up or burned to the ground by the repressed people with their three grand smartphones, 300 quid trainers, Armani T-Shirts, two grand Louis Vuitton handbags etc. Power to the people, stick it to the man baby.

    • Only if you are a pleb, if you are from a ‘minority/oppressed’ community or a politician you can do as you please. You may not see any members of your family as that would be risking spreading CV & for that you will be fined & possibly arrested. However, if you want to organise marches against ‘the man’ then you are at perfect liberty to congregate in the tens of thousands, assault people, destroy property, loot etc.

      If you want to drive from Margate to Hants then you will be fined by the police & possibly arrested, if you are travelers however feel free to drive from Hants to a random park in Margate, turn it into a rubbish dump & racetrack etc & no worries.

      If you suddenly decide you probably have CV & want to drive your child hundreds of miles to visit castles & ‘test your eyesight’ then prepare to be fined/arrested, however if you write Tory policy then you have the Prime Minister saying you did nothing wrong, the police will do nothing etc. All in it together though-just like man of the people Davey Cameron all those years back, what ho old chaps.

      • You forgot if you are a local MP it’s OK to meet your married lover outside whereas anyone else would get fined.

        This is why lockdown has failed. As soon as people see the elite getting away with it when they themselves are trying to play by the rules then it’s all over.

  2. Not all travellers are like this, but this group leave the park filthy after every visit, they fill the public bins with rotting food, human waste and dump black bags beside them when there’s no room left. Me and my partner have been chased by their dogs walking across the green to get home. Action needs to be taken because they aren’t stopping. They give nothing to society and have no respect for their surroundings.

    • Have you no understanding why they have to do this? They repeatedly ask for bins so they can put their rubbish in but repeatedly the council refuses the request. What would you have them do in that case?
      The traveller community had been repeatedly unfairly treated and ignored by this council. They only want a permanent pitch in fact they had, themselves, an agreement to purchase land for this but the council refuses permission. What options do they have? They are demonised by ‘good citizens’ blamed for all sorts of wild unsubstantiated scandals and crimes just for wanting to follow their own traditions. How would you feel in their situation?

      • Funny, I seem to remember the lot at Dane Valley & elsewhere being given reams of black sacks by Cllr Taylor & others & when they left their rubbish was dumped on the ground & I think the sacks were in among that.

        I must have been dreaming reading about them intimidating people walking their dogs etc on public land at Jacky Baker’s-saying it was now their land & threatening physical violence & elsewhere. Forcing business in Cliftonville to close a year or so back via their threats when they weren’t given freebies.

        The good citizens like the ones having a picnic in Dane Park when this lot drove right through it upon arrival you mean? Maybe if they behaved like decent human beings rather than scumbags people might be more sympathetic & lobby KCC to find them permanent spots. But intimidation rather then integration seems to be their agenda.

        Not sure where you live sir, perhaps in some kind of PC bubble of a rose garden, but try living with people defecating, riding around on quad bikes, circling round day & night beeping their cars, shouting at/intimidating people, making threats, doing bogus door knocks to try to carry out imaginary work & then charge a fortune with the threat of violence if not paid up etc.

  3. Maybe if for once they were treated like humans and not pariah things would change old saying monkey see monkey do I ran a traveler pub in London absolute gentleman

    • Ralph, I think people would generally be much more tolerant if the groups like we have had in Thanet in recent years had a little bit more respect for where they are pitching up and tried to get on with the community.

      I keep reading that the groups who cause trouble and leave rubbish everywhere are a tiny minority and the vast majority of travellers are law abiding, hard working respectful people. I think we have just been incredibly unlucky in Thanet in that case as all the groups I have witnessed over the last few years have left a real trail of destruction behind them. I have personally seen travellers defecating in bushes when there is a public toilet open less than 200m away. I have been insulted and shouted at for no reason just for walking my dog near their camps. I have had their kids knocking on my door during lockdown being rude and insulting when I wasn’t interested in their offers of driveway repairs.

      Personally, if they pitched up somewhere, cleaned up after themselves, perhaps tried using public toilets or at least had toilets in their caravans and stopped going door to door selling building work in quite an intimidating way I wouldn’t have any issues with them at all.

      Respect has to be earnt. You’ll find that public opinion would change quite quickly if the kind of groups we have had in Thanet recently just tried to fit in a bit more.

    • We all know that no matter how much you bend over to help the traveller community and give them the freedom to integrate into society they will see us as mugs, laugh in our faces and do us all over to their benefit. They will play the discrimination card because it’s their green card and it suits them to do so as that way they can continue to get away with criminal acts. They don’t care about us and only care about themselves.

      • Tax Payer
        You are completely right, in what you say.

        There are also two sets of rules, when it involves travellers. If I drove into the middle of Dane Park, and parked my car, I would be arrested.

        If you are a traveller, and do the same, no problem, park where you like, go to the toilet anywhere, leave your rubbish, someone else will clear it for you.

    • Ralph-Maybe for once if they could actually behave like humans rather than dirty thugs spoiling for trouble then people might treat them differently. Would you sir be happy if people rolled uninvited into your garden & started defecating, throwing rubbish everywhere, making threats to you & your family, destroying your garden by riding quad bikes, cars & caravans around on it 24/7, while shouting obscenities & beeping their horns?

  4. Travellers take but do not give to any local area they park in. They leave rubbish for the local council to clear and when they illegally vandalised a barrier to get into an area near Courtstairs Park, Ramsgate they threw black sacks of rubbish over the cliff onto the pavement below. They should never have left Hampshire but then people have been staying over along Ramsgate’s East Cliff every weekend since Easter.

  5. You say not all travellers are like this. I have never seen a Travellers incursion in Thanet that when they leave. They have not left rubbish and human waste.

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