Leader: Law should be the same for everyone
Finding their own site waterlogged, a group of travellers simply moved onto other land as if they owned it, churning up the ground in the process.
Finding their own site waterlogged, a group of travellers simply moved onto other land as if they owned it, churning up the ground in the process.
It has been more than an incidental irritation. The ground on which the travellers drew up was community football pitches at Park Hall, near Oswestry.
According to Neil Jones, chairman of Oswestry Boys and Girls Football Club, at least five football pitches have been ruined. A fundraising five-a-side football competition could be hit as a result.
The travellers had no right to go on the land, but they did because they could. That is why some pieces of open land have mounds of earth or low overhead bars at the entrances to stop caravans or other trespassers moving on.
The travellers’ behaviour has been inconsiderate at best. It should have been obvious to them that the ground was soft and liable to damage.
Apparently they did not care.
Nor does it seem to have been a factor in their considerations that they should not be there in the first place.
They had moved on when they found the site of their Christian travellers’ event at Halston Hall, near Whittington, was waterlogged.
If being a Christian traveller involves respect and compassion for others, they have failed on both counts.
They are not welcome there. But once travellers have set up camp, landowners know it can be a heck of a job to shift them.
Because they are travellers, there is a softly-softly approach to moving them on.
But is it not about time that the law was changed so that it is applied equally, no matter which section of society somebody causing upset and inconvenience belongs to?
Comments for: "Leader: Law should be the same for everyone"
H. St. John Peasbody
"Finding their own site waterlogged, a group of travellers simply moved onto other land as if they owned it, churning up the ground in the process."
This is rather like bankers running up debts that their banks couldn't cover with their own capital.
The Original Jake
This is rather like suggesting that two (unrelated) wrongs make a right.
Andy
Peasbody!
Shut up, comrade!
It's like a broken record...
Harry Wildgeese
Is it possible that our Christian Traveller compatriots, having watched England's performances in the European Championships, decided that any land given over to football training might be classed as wasteland and so selected it for temporary visiting rights?
John Howard
Christian travellers? Not much respect for the Ten Commndments to be seen here. Trespass and criminal damage charges should follow at the very least.
Andy
I'm not all that up on the old commandments but am pretty sure that thou shalt not commit criminal damage wasnt one of them...
let me have my say
Who is going to pay for any damage !!! They should be made to pay for damages before they are moved on, and not leave it to someone else to pick up the bill.
pete
land law is the same for everyone it is how society applies morality and interprets to breach law which is offensive.
Rob, Telford
...so now they've wrecked several pitches, and this weekend's football tournament has had to be cancelled - so the club have to pay to repair the damage and lose the income from what was to have been a fundraising event.
...and travellers accuse people who don't like them of bigotry?
I'll wait for Vanessa Redgrave to come on here and tell us about the majority of travellers who are hard-working, law-abiding taxpayers...(or more likely not see this comment published...).