Travellers who illegally set up camp on a green belt site have finally departed after a High Court ruling – but left piles of rubbish and abandoned vehicles behind.
Families began setting up camp days after barging on to a beauty spot in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, and ripping up the land with bulldozers and diggers in April this year.
They were later given a deadline of Monday this week to leave Friendless Lane in the village and have now done so, yet photos show the litter and damage still there.
The damage to the land, however, remains after months of legal wrangling – with abandoned cars and strewn rubbish across the sun-scorched ground.
People in a first batch of caravans ‘grabbed’ the land on the morning of Easter Sunday, with local authority officials off during that Bank Holiday weekend.
More static homes arrived on the green space that was destroyed by hardstand paving.
The group laid down huge squares of concrete on the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty surrounded by rolling fields and woodland.
A resident living nearby told the Daily Mail a ‘crisis moment’ was reached after villagers attempted to prevent a long convoy of works vehicles from entering the site.
Piles of rubbish have been left on fields near the Hertfordshire village of Flamstead
Abandoned vehicles have also been seen at the site previously occupied by travellers in a ‘land grab’ before a High Court ruling ordering them to leave
They said: ‘Residents tried to impede access to the site in a lawful manner. There were two policemen sat in their car.’
The local told how the situation turned violent when the traveller group forced their way through the blockade, damaging cars and hitting the police vehicle.
Deputy high court judge Christopher Kennedy ruled in July in favour of Dacorum Borough Council’s legal action bidding to clear the area.
He described ‘flagrant’ breaches of interim orders and said the injunction against the travellers was ‘just and proportionate’.
The judge also told the group to pay £15,000 towards the local authority’s £51,000 legal bill as well as clearing the site before leaving it.
His verdict has now taken effect, with Flamstead Parish Council chairman Billy Pither saying of the travellers: ‘They have been leaving steadily over the last week and we had drone footage of the very last caravan leaving.’
He added that ‘a couple of vehicles and a container’ remained but with no one occupying them.
Mr Pither said: ‘We’re all amazed and astonished as it’s been a tough four months, but we’re chuffed to bits that we did as much as we could.’
The abandoned camp in Hertfordshire has been scattered with waste and discarded vehicles
Local councillors have described the site as ‘a mess’ following the group’s departure
Mounds of rubbish have been left behind at the former traveller camp in Flamstead
Vehicles have also been abandoned after people evacuated from the area this week
The unauthorised travellers’ camp in Friendless Lane in Flamstead has finally been vacated
A High Court judge told the travellers’ group to pay £15,000 towards the local authority’s £51,000 legal bill as well as clearing the site before leaving it
But he described the land left behind as ‘a mess’, with ‘6,000 tonnes of hardcore on it that they brought in’ – adding: ‘It’s going to take a lot of diggers and lorries to remove that.’
Flamstead Parish Council chairman Billy Pither said he was ‘delighted’ the travellers had left – but described the site as ‘a mess’
Victoria Collins, Liberal Democrats MP for Harpenden and Berkhamsted, said: ‘I welcome the news that the site in Friendless Lane is now being vacated.
‘I know this has been a matter of significant concern for local residents.’
Dacorum Borough Council leader Sally Symington said: ‘We welcome the compliance with the injunction to date.
‘The council will monitor the situation and will continue to liaise with Flamstead Parish Council and residents.’
The travellers’ group was accused in April of damaging cars and wielding iron bars as they forced their way onto the site.
An unnamed parish councillor told The Telegraph: ‘At about 7 o’clock (on Sunday), a whole load of travellers barged their way through.
‘There was a lot of violent abuse and threats, people wielding iron bars, a few cars damaged, they drove into a police car and drove past. They started to bring in lorryloads of crushed concrete.’
Villagers were left furious after the group barged their way onto a field near Friendless Lane in Flamstead in Hertfordshire (pictured in April)
Villagers said they felt ‘invaded’ in a situation they described as ‘absolutely horrendous’
An aerial view shows the extent of damage done to the land in April after travellers arrived
Residents estimated that about 300 trips were made by individuals delivering materials onto the site.
A police car was rammed off the road in the process, it was claimed.
The travellers arrived three days after the diggers despite Dacorum Borough Council issuing a temporary stop notice – a planning enforcement tool used to halt work – on the Saturday.
The group then applied for planning permission to turn the Green Belt site from agricultural land to a Gypsy and Traveller site, consisting of 14 pitches.
Each pitch would have space for one permanent mobile home, two touring caravans and one ‘day room’.
According to the plans, the mobile homes would typically be 55ft long and 14ft wide, and the site would also have 4m-tall amenity buildings.
The agent submitting the application claimed on April 6 work had not yet started on the site – but locals pointed out construction actually began on April 2.
A trend of ‘land grabs’ by travellers has involved groups buying up fields before swiftly converting them into unauthorised caravan pitches when few officials are around to intervene.
‘Retrospective’ planning applications are then submitted to councils.
Even if these fail, legal proceedings to clear the sites are long and costly – allowing travellers to live on them, or rent out caravans to tenants, for months or even years.
Over the Easter weekend this year, unauthorised developments sprang up not only in Hertfordshire but also in Kent and Surrey.
Shadow communities secretary Sir James Cleverly told the Daily Mail in May: ‘Far too often, people wake up after the bank holiday weekend to find illegal traveller encampments in their communities.
‘There is a real problem of travellers trespassing on other people’s land, as well as unlawfully laying down pitches.
‘Families are understandably alarmed, and feel abandoned as criminality goes unpunished and green spaces are occupied and damaged.
‘Eviction becomes mired in legal challenges and even when they are moved on, travellers often come back.’
His party says it would ban retrospective planning approval for caravan sites and strengthen countryside protections.
