Council seeking High Court injunction to ban travellers from Pineham Lock

Authorities including the police and the borough council evicted the travellers from the site on Banbury Lane at Pineham Lock, where they had set up an encampment in August.

It was reported that residents had had to put up with an ‘unacceptable’ amount of anti-social behaviour from the community that were living at the site, including allegations that sanitary towels were thrown at nearby neighbours and that stones were thrown at cars.

Upon them leaving the site on October 1, large amounts of rubbish were left behind including fridges and gas cylinders, which had to be cleared away at the expense of the landowner.

Now, according to the deputy leader of Northampton Borough Council, the authority is attempting to get a court order that would make it easier to move travellers on if they set up camp there again.

In his latest monthly report, Councillor Phil Larratt outlined how the borough had responded to the last incident, and how they intend to tackle the problem should it rear its head again in the future.

He wrote: “The licensing and litigation lawyer worked with the Planning Enforcement and Neighbourhood Wardens teams, as well as Northamptonshire Police, to secure the swift and lawful removal of a large group of travellers that had set up an encampment at a field in Banbury Lane in early August 2020.

“This was in the process of proceeding to seize vehicles on the site suspected of having committed environmental offences on the site by judicial order, but the entire group vacated the Banbury Lane site on Thursday October 1 before this could take place.

“The licensing and litigation lawyer will continue to progress an application for a High Court injunction which will effectively prohibit residential occupation of the site in future, by unauthorised traveller encampments or any owner of any of the plots comprising the site.”

Councillor Larratt says that the basis of the council’s legal argument will be that the safety and life of any residential occupier of that site would be threatened should the adjacent water course flood.