North Yorkshire Council’s response to an unauthorised traveller site has been criticised as “ineffective” by a councillor.
Reform UK’s Tim Grogan, who represents Monk Fryston and South Milford, has called for urgent changes to how the authority responds when land is occupied and developed without permission.
It comes after travellers set up on a four-acre (1.6ha) paddock on Betteras Hill Road, in Hillam, near Sherburn in Elmet, on 11 September.
Grogan’s motion, which will be heard at next week’s full council meeting, includes calls for new police powers, an out-of-hours provision for planning enforcement and urgent allocation of land to accommodate travellers when needed.
“The travellers arrived at the site with a convoy of trucks, industrial machinery, building materials, septic tanks and a mega tonnage of hardcore,” Grogan said.
“They executed their entry on to the land with a cold, mechanical synchronisation akin to an operation of military professionalism.”
According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, he said the incident followed similar developments at Lumby and Biggin, also in North Yorkshire.
“I am not here to demonise the travelling community but what has happened in Hillam, Lumby and Biggin is wrong,” Grogan said.
“I recognise and value democracy but this is neither. It is favouring individuals who break the law with impunity over those law-abiding rate payers who play by the rules.”
