No one can help – not Aberdeenshire Council’s environmental health department, not Grampian Police, and certainly not SEPA, which, on being contacted by the landowner regarding flytipping on her land, suggested that she herself might be prosecuted – for allowing the flytipping on her land.
The travellers are classified as an ethnic group. They have rights. The landowner, it would appear, has none. She has even been instructed to leave an access open so the travellers can drive in and out of her land. She is not permitted onto her land, even when she requested the police to accompany her – for her own safety, they say. When her grandson mentioned bringing in equipment to plough the field as had been planned, he was threatened by one of the travellers, in front of a police officer who succeeded in defusing the incident.
This group has also been excavating holes with a small digger, close to the underground oil and gas pipelines which criss-cross this area and inhibit planning developments. Local councillor Wendy Agnew – who has been very active in representing local residents regarding this issue – contacted the Health and Safety Executive, only to be told that this was trespass, and so was a matter for the police. However, the police advised the landowner that they will not charge the travellers with trespass.
Stonehaven has ‘attracted’ travellers in the past; what is different this time is the groundswell of public opinion against them, and in particular the revolt against ‘one law for the taxpayers, another (or no) law for the them’. In fact, the group camping at the open-air pool had themselves to call the police when local youths allegedly pelted caravans with stones and eggs. Another (legitimate) charity van was pelted by wet sand ‘snowballs’ by a group of 50-somethings – they thought it was a traveller’s van. Such is the strength of feeling in the town.
Literally everyone is talking about the inequality and the lack of police action. On the one hand, senior police officers tell residents that they will not act on anything to do with the encampment, but will act upon any criminal activity reported. On the other hand, police officers appear to turn a blind eye to vehicles with missing registration plates and no tax discs and indecent exposure. It would seem that anything that happens in ‘the encampment’ is outside the law. Police may well act if anyone reports (or is brave enough to report) criminal offences, such as shoplifting and intimidation/attempted assault off the encampment; otherwise, the message seems to be: forget it.
One local retired police officer has advised that there is ample scope to act against this nuisance to the wider community. There is a choice to enforce: the Trespass (Scotland) Act 1865; the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984, Section 151(1) of which prohibits camping in a road including a verge; the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, part V, s61-64, which gives police the authority to move on people if there is more than one trespasser, if they intend to remain for some time, if reasonable steps have been taken to remove them and if they have either caused damage, or used abusive/threatening language or behaviour or if there are more than six vehicles – surely this covers all these encampments?
Another interesting law is the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 which would appear to prohibit unplanned caravan/campsite development, for which the landowner (most often the local authority) is responsible. Is any police officer brave enough to charge the local council’s chief executive with this offence? Unlikely – particularly given the view of many of the taxpaying, voting public in Stonehaven, who are now saying that their respect for the police has been lost. Let’s hope and pray they don’t start taking the law into their own hands.
Elma McMenemy lives in Stonehaven
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