Derbyshire council extends Travellers' stay in station car park as search for sites continues

The family, which the council has a legal duty to accommodate, had initially been given permission to make an encampment at Matlock Bath station yard car park until January 31.

The Gypsy and Traveller Site Provision Working Group was expected to present a progress report to a meeting of the full council on Thursday, January 26, with an update on their search for other suitable pitching sites, but has failed to meet that deadline.

A spokesperson for the council said: “The Gypsy and Traveller Site Provision Working Group continue to review alternative options within the district, but not enough progress has been made for a report or recommendations to be presented to the Council meeting scheduled for this Thursday.

“Given the absence of any report or recommendations, the family will remain at Matlock Bath station yard car park until an alternative site has been identified for occupation in view of the homelessness duty that the district council has to the specific Traveller family on site.”

They added: “In the meantime, the working group are examining the potential relocation of the site to a different part of the station yard car park to facilitate the use of the coach park in the coming weeks.

“Part of the considerations of the working group will be to identify ways in which the site can afford privacy to the specific Traveller family whilst ensuring that the impact on residents and visitors to Matlock Bath is minimal.”

In a further update, the authority said its latest efforts to block unauthorised encampments at the same site had been effective, with other Travellers who arrived in early January leaving peacefully once the council was given permission to use court bailiffs if necessary.

The spokesperson said: “In this case we applied to the court and were granted a hearing very quickly. This is not always the case as the timescales are determined by the availability of court time, but on this occasion we were lucky.

“The order was served on the encampment, who informed us they would move off site voluntarily over the weekend of January 14 – which they did.”

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