Travellers camp on hospital landing site.
 

Travellers block hospital landing site (sports pitch) at Brighton hospital.

Does this happen anywhere else in the country?

Hover Bovva! Travellers camp on emergency helicopter landing site | Latest News | Latest Breaking News | Daily Star. Simply The Best 7 Days A Week

Just set the caravans on fire…. They'll move then!!:E

Call in a Chinook for landing :}
That will clear the pad :O

A ploy of the Oz Fed coppers I believe in the past, especially where its nice and gritty dirt etc and involving loosely clothed hippies agitating at places like Roxby Downs (uranium mine in outback South Oz)

Yes, and in other places in oz !

Satsuma - perhaps if one of your relatives was denied access to urgently required medical attention by some of these 'travellers' you might have a different opinion.

It makes my blood boil that "travellers" and such are permitted to stick two fingers up at the system they seek to eschew when it suits them, but still run back to with their hands out or when they feel their "rights" are being violated.

The costs to society are huge and the disruption and expense to landowners is vast.

Decisive action needs to be taken (but is unlikely from any of our current politicos - hence the rise of UKIP etc).

However....

I am deeply disturbed by some of the posts, above. I am reminded of another group of individuals that described travellers (and a few other sub-groups) as less than human (their phrase was "Untermenschen" i believe). They also thought that they should be "nuked" along with their children (although they eventually settled on a different "final solution").

Capetonian and Cyclic - I would ask you to seriously consider the awful parallels that you are flippantly, i hope, allying yourself with.

On a purely practical note - the more people jump up from the extreme right advocating this kind of nonsense, the more we will be lumbered with bleeding heart lefties screaming on their behalf.

What is required is a sensible law about land occupation, a fast track eviction process and benefit system that is fit for purpose. (Rather than an ethnic testing programme and some cans of Zyclon-B).

OH

Perhaps when they behave and live like civilised humans, respect the laws and conventions of the societies of which they want the benefits without contributing, and when they respect the rights and properties of others, they may earn some consideration.

Until then, no change of my view and no apology for it.

Agree with Capetonian c.s.; they are acting like scum so they should be treated like scum. The newspaper article is dripping with political correctness. Why?

I have not ever heard anything recount a positive encounter with these so called travelers. They do place themselves outside of civil society yet demand all the niceties of same society. They are loyal only among themselves yet demand economic loyalty from law abiding tax payers.

They are not shunned for their race or creed, but because of their criminal behaviour.

Simple fact: if law abiding citizens no longer feel protected by the law, they will eventually cease to obey the law..Better have the anger and discontent out in the open in the hope that the politicians will finally act before we reach that stage.

On topic: it is a bloody disgrace that anybody will simply set up camp and block such a landing site. I don't know how well it was marked as such but if it was clearly marked then these idiots should be prosecuted to the end of the earth. That is me speaking as a former SAR and HEMS pilot.

This is so uncivilized and careless attitude. If they cooperate we can also and we should cooperate but if people don't behave properly, how can they expect anything good from the officials? I agree with Capetonnian completely in this case.

What, travellers pitching up on land they have no right to do so on?

Is yours a serious question, if so, where have you been for the last 30 odd years?:=

Yes eVAN it was was a question?
As for your 30 year question.
Answer. Mainly on the beach but we don't get many caravans here. I think it may have something to do with the water around the private island :E

Forgive the ignorance here from an Aussie living in the USA, but what is a "traveller"? is that some type of Gypsy minority in the UK? Not trying to be rude or facetious, just trying to understand the references from a cultural understanding perspective. Anyone blocking an emergency landing zone in my book isn't very bloody smart or considerate, but like another poster said, not sure on how clear the markings are. What perplexed me is that they stated they needed to stop for food and fuel "for a few days". Didn't make any sense to me, but I'm sure you can all fill me in.

At the moment in Aberdeen we have about one hundred traveller's caravans parked on recreational spaces. That is the beach cricket ground, the council youth and boys football pitches and the Don River wildlife presevation area. They have wrecked the cricket green, none of the boys league matches have been played for two weeks and two swans have disappeared.

Any green area around housing estates is barred by massive concrete blocks so as to prevent the passage of caravans, as are the car parks at the side of the DIY supermarkets north of the city.

The Kincardin golf course was visited last week. The golf course was unusable for a week until they left and is still unusabkle because of health and safety reasons. One of them being that they used bunkers as toilets and it will cost £20,000 to clean and disinfect them.

The apologisted claim the the problem would go if the council built sites for them to stay. There is one northwest of Aberdeen, noticable for its loneliness.

The caravans they use are on the £20-30 K bracket and the vehicle used to pull them are normally transit vans or trucks but often a recent model large Mercedes saloon.

When the police do investigate , which they cannot do without being accused of harassment they find that the majority of the numbers of the vehicles they investigate usually have no trace of current tax or insurance and some of them are on vehicles that the number plate bears no relation to.

There is a growing undercurrent of frustration by the citizens of Aberdeen because they seem to be affected more than most. It is quite probable that some groups are going to take the law in their own hands.

With good reason. It has been the only thing the has led to a satifactory conclusion in other places.

To give a little insight to Aussiecop,

Travelers are the Dirt that is blown when the wind blows, they hold out their hands for all the free money our weak Governments here in the UK have decided they can have, they have a shed load of Feral Kids who break, steal and trash everything that us "Normal " folk like to have, they break into and Squat in property that is empty, once in, you cant even use any sort of force to get em out, ( nobody has yet explained that to a bloody big Alsatian or Rottweiler though) they are given succor by our manby pandy Councils who give them more classification than us normal(read house-dwellers, rate , Tax payers)
they are worse than Gypsy's and sadly have the state on their side,

Big nasty snarling dogs soon get rid of them,..

Peter R-B
Lancashire

Frankly the police in the UK have the powers to remove travellers immediately from any space where the travellers are preventing its legitimate use.This certainly covers a hospital helipad,football pitches where games are scheduled and similar.
The real issue is that often the police don't want to act ,either because of the resources they may need or because the travellers may simply relocate somewhere worse. Councils are also delayed.....they first have to assess the children's needs,then go to a magistrates court to get an eviction order.Unless the magistrates agree to an urgent hearing,this can take at least a week.
However on private land the landowner can act quite quickly,especially if he is a farmer and they turn up on the day he is due to muck spread on the field in question!

Tut tut Peter R-B, you'll be getting a red card from Satsuma and joining me on the naughty step!

Road Flares properly placed cures a lot of problems especially done by the Dozens!:uhoh:

"Cor Plod! I was just standing here smoking this Road Flare and admiring the view and next thing I know that Traveller over there was calling for the Fire Brigade!"

I thought he summed things up perfectly. If a ban is coming his way, I'll take some of it on his behalf!!

Well said Peter:ok:

Another problem is that even when action is taken to force them to
move off land they are trespassing on, all they do, eventually, is move on,
then invade somewhere else and cause havoc for the next unsuspecting community. :yuk:

They moan that the Council won't provide them with suitable sites,
and plead how hard done by they are, but do everything they can
to avoid paying a penny to any Council in the land, or any other form of Tax,
and are never required to pay to clean up the vile filthy mess they invariably leave in their wake.

Most of the TGB's I've ever had the displeasure of meeting have had prolific Irish accents,
and while they object to being called Gypsies ( the "G" in TGB ), saying "We're not Gypsies, we're Travellers",
they also object if you suggest they F*** Off and TRAVEL back to Ireland.

Nail.