Travellers evicted from Brighton site

Up to 25 travellers were evicted from a site in Brighton yesterday (Tuesday 25 October).

A clean-up operation was under way at 19 Acres, a site close to the A27 Brighton bypass, just off Devil’s Dyke Road.

Council contractors loaded two lorries with the remnants of a summer’s occupation.

Meanwhile travellers set up camp in Wilson Avenue and Sheepcote Valley in Whitehawk and in Carden Park off Carden Avenue in Hollingbury.

At 19 Acres workers declined to comment on the mess left behind but a spokesman for Brighton and Hove City Council said that the eviction had taken place peacefully.

Discarded gas cannisters, sofas, widescreen televisions and other household and general waste were left at the site which also had a number of scorched patches of grass.

The council permitted travellers to remain on the land throughout the summer.

This was part of an experimental measure to permit the use of a tolerated site to try to prevent encampments in more sensitive residential locations.

Fifteen vehicles left voluntarily before yesterday’s eviction but the remaining travellers refused to leave the land.

The council was forced to obtain a possession order from Brighton County Court on Friday 14 October.

JP