Talking Politics with Craig Whittaker

I am disappointed to see that despite new legislation giving the Police powers to crack down on antisocial people causing misery by setting up illegal pitches and refusing to remove their vehicles, Brighouse is again plagued with another unauthorised encampment.

Under new law, the Police can ban trespassers from returning to a patch of land for a year, rather than just three months.

The new criminal offence is punishable by a prison sentence of up to 3 months, or a fine of up to £2,500, or both, and/or seizure of the vehicle.

I had hoped the new law would spare us from any further delay from the Police and Calderdale Council in moving on future unauthorised encampments. Unfortunately, these powers are useless if local police and Council policy do not encourage their use.

Were it you or I, we would be issued a fine and our vehicles clamped. However, the Council have not issued any fines to members of these illegal encampments. The Council have instead decided to put a hold on eviction until a Public Health Assessment is carried out.

This is in addition to the Council’s usual ‘welfare checks’ when a group first encamps providing them with portable toilets and the likes.

These Assessments take a minimum of 10 days and delay the eviction of these encampments.

It is clear to all how much others’ lives are made a total and complete misery by these encampments.

Resident’s dread parking their cars nearby for fear of abuse and theft; the areas are incredibly unkempt; the anti-social behaviour that residents have to endure is totally unacceptable and then to top it all off, the taxpayer must then wait for the Council to come and clear up the filth, squalor, and rubbish left behind.

These policies, created entirely by Calderdale Council for Calderdale Council, are not in place for private landowners. That is why they can evict encampments within 24 hours as opposed to the on average 4+ weeks it takes the Council.

The ludicrous time it takes for the removal of these unauthorised encampments is exacerbated by Calderdale’s attitude to them.

Rather than seeing these illegal encampments as a public menace against which enforcement action should be taken swiftly, Calderdale choose to focus their resource – the scarcity of which the Labour administration is quick to remind us – on promoting the ‘history and culture, and contribution it makes to our lives’. Not my words, the words of Calderdale Council.

Calderdale’s whimsical attitude to the trail of destruction these illegal camps cause is bordering on comical and would be so if it were not so wholly damaging to our area.