The final few wooden posts are now in place around the recreation field. Whilst we know that a determined assault on the field would be successful, the objective of our placing over 200 posts on the perimeter was to make the field less attractive to travellers in their bid to camp-up somewhere for free.  Considering all the options that were looked at in the immediate aftermath of last year's incursions, I believe that we have found the least objectionable solution, and the cost has been mainly funded by CDC. We now face the task of waiting to see if we are subject to illegal encampments this summer.

WSCC also face the same waiting game. The airfield was subject to one of the most extreme invasions in all of the south of England, with over 20 caravans camping out for over a week, making residents feel helpless and angry about the lawless nature of the travellers. It is therefore not surprising that WSCC have made access to the airfield so much more constrained over the past year. The Parish Council understands the frustration that allotment holders and community garden members feel about the restrictions imposed upon them, but the inconvenience they face is of a minor nature compared to that which adjoining residents faced last year during the incursion. I personally walked through that encampment late at night, and the atmosphere was of a violent and aggressive nature, nothing that I have ever experienced in England before.

With the news that CDC have pushed through a temporary travellers site at Westhampnett it appears that some relief may be coming to the challenges faced by our communities.  It is going to be 2015 before that site is available, but once open, local residents will be justified in expecting their police service to give no quarter to illegal encampments in the county, and to move travellers on immediately.

The human rights of the law abiding majority should not be sacrificed for the rights of a small group who seek to abuse the system. If these travellers were genuinely homeless and destitute, they would receive the help, sup-port and charity that we, as a community, are clearly happy to give to the genuinely needy.