B/lock your gates!

Block your gates
There’s an illegal occupation on the football field in Poynings, and the people may be moved on .. Mid Sussex District Council and Sussex Police are aware of this. If you have any issues about this occupation, phone Sussex Police on 101 (the non-emergency number), quoting crime reference 1487 of 26 June. As ever, if you see a crime being committed (or just about to be), phone 999 instead.

Richard Corner, 219

Postscript 1: roads into Poynings were blocked by the police last night and access to Fullking from the East was via Clappers Lane only. The roads are clear now but the occupation persists. The photo below was taken at around 11:00 this morning.

Postscript 2: the recreation ground had been vacated by 12:50pm.

Poynings Recreation Ground infestation

Horsdean traveller site gets ministerial approval

Horsdean traveller site
The Argus reports:

The Department for Communities and Local Government have confirmed that they will not be calling in a planning application for 12 permanent residential traveller pitches at Horsdean .. the Secretary of State confirmed the site will be given the go-ahead following his scrutiny. Brighton & Hove City Council will now be able to go ahead with their plans to create the site, which extends and improves an existing traveller transit site just to the east of Patcham on the north side of the A27.

Earlier coverage here.

“A community impact assessment”

Nineteen Acres
The Argus reported yesterday that:

Travellers have moved onto national parkland north of 19 Acres in Brighton. About 40 vehicles were reported to have set up an unauthorised encampment on land north of 19 Acres in Dyke Road, Brighton yesterday. The group is believed to be the one evicted from Sheepcote Valley by Brighton and Hove City Council on Tuesday evening. Officials believed the group would move into West Sussex, not onto land it owns in the South Downs National Park.

A council spokesman said that officers will visit the new site to carry out “a community impact assessment”.

Living in vans on the Downs

Living in a van

Van dwellers appeal eviction notice

The Argus reports:

The group of van dwellers have been on the site, which is in South Downs National Park .. for at least four months. When The Argus visited earlier this month, it included a university student, a roller-skating teacher and a telesales worker. Some members of the current encampment were part of a group which was evicted from land bordering Devil’s Dyke Road in May 2012.

Ward councillor Ken Norman .. said “The big issue here is human rights, whatever they are.”

Illegal encampments can be reported to West Sussex County Council by contacting Esther Quarm on 033 022 23736 or email esther.quarm@westsussex.gov.uk