EXCLUSIVE Travellers who 'seized' field in 24 hours: Horrified villagers in sleepy hamlet are left 'powerless' by speed of 'land-grabbing' travellers

Daily Mail​

a day ago

Horrified villagers in a sleepy rural hamlet have accused a 'land-grabbing' group of travellers of 'devastating' their home by tearing up a field and paving it in 24 hours.
'Powerless' locals in the isolated farming community of Charles have lashed out at the alleged 'eco-vandalism' after industrial diggers ripped into a field and levelled it.
Diggers bulldozed through a large grass bank to gain access to the secluded field in the picturesque north Devon hamlet - which is home to just a few dozen homes.
The work, which is believed to be part of an unauthorised project to build a new traveller site, started at about 5pm on Monday evening, locals said.
Within 24 hours, the tranquil patch grassland had been transformed into a grey eyesore, standing out against the rolling green hills of the surrounding countryside.
Devastating aerial pictures can today reveal how the former pony field in the rural oasis has been ruined and turned into a gravel car park, with caravans pitched around it and fence posts installed.
The works have been carried out without planning permission - and is feared to be part of a new trend of brazen landgrabs carried out by travellers.
'This is an atrocity... it's devastated the countryside with absolutely no thought for the harm it will cause,' one furious 47-year-old woman, who lives locally, told MailOnline.
'A massive JCB has ripped out the bank, which is protected because of nesting birds. They have flattened the field and it looks like they're concreting there already.
'We feel absolutely powerless right now... It's one rule for one part of society and another rule for the other.'
When MailOnline visited the countryside location on Wednesday afternoon, a number of men could be seen working at it, using an industrial excavator to carve away ground and roller to flatten it.
The incident appears to be the latest in a trend sweeping the country which has seen fields unlawfully developed into traveller sites.
Groups across the UK have been accused of carrying out brazen bank holiday 'land seizures' to rapidly build camps under the noses of council chiefs while their offices are closed.
Allegedly weaponising the national breaks, industrial diggers, excavators and lorries carrying gravel, are mobilised to rip up and pave over fields in protected green belts during 'deliberate and meticulously planned' operations.
Cynically, the 'illegal' conversions are done without any planning permission, flouting development rules - with 'retrospective' applications later submitted to councils to allow the newly-constructed sites to remain.
Since April, locations across the country have seen a sudden surge of developments - with the bulk taking place on the Easter, VE Day and late May bank holidays.
When MailOnline visited the location on Wednesday afternoon, a number of men could be seen working at it, using an industrial excavator to carve away ground and roller to flatten it
An investigation by MailOnline has revealed similar unauthorised 'landgrabs' blighting villages and towns across Buckinghamshire, West Sussex, Nottinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Gloucester, Worcestershire and Cheshire.
It comes after this paper revealed how the quaint village of Burtonwood, near Warrington, in Cheshire, had been the latest to be hit.
It was targeted during last week's May bank holiday, with travellers taking less than 72 hours to convert the six-acre field into a gravel car park.
They covered half the open space in hardcore and also built a 10ft-high wooden fence around the boundary, with groups allegedly working through the night - much to the fury of dismayed locals.
'I have never felt so impotent as a councillor in not being able to do something,' local politician Stuart Mann said. 'The neighbours suffered for 36 hours solid that went through the night. It was a military operation in terms of how [the travellers] achieved it.'
The works on the land appear to mirror a similar incident weeks earlier near the West Sussex town of Petworth, in the heart of the protected South Downs National Park, during the VE Day bank holiday at the start of May.
A tranquil plot in Blind Lane, Lurgashall, was transformed into a building site as heavy machinery ploughed through the field without planning permission, turning it into gravel car park, with 10 caravans later appearing there.
Local MP Andrew Griffith was left horrified by the unauthorised development and now fears travellers elsewhere could launch similar landgrabs if planning rules aren't tightened up.
'These are clearly deliberate and meticulously planned operations,' Mr Griffith, the Conservatives' Shadow Business and Trade Secretary, previously said.
'In the Lurgashall case it took far too long for the local council to act leaving ratepayers and residents at the mercy of this devastating planning blight.
'It is clearly foreseeable that bank holiday weekends are the moment of maximum danger and yet that's when town halls fail to ensure staff cover.'
Work at the six-acre Burtonwood site in Cheshire reportedly started at 6pm on Friday, May 23.
MailOnline understands it came after travellers legitimately purchased the plot of land.
Within hours, villagers reported excavators and tipper trucks working through the night to remove soil and replace it with concrete, completing the job in less than three days.
Before and after aerial photographs show the extent of the destruction and more than a dozen caravans and other vehicles have since moved onto the site.
Although a retrospective planning application has now been submitted to Warrington Borough Council, Cllr Mann said an investigation had been launched after complaints from locals, who say the land is green belt and should be for agricultural use only.
In the Devonshire village of Charles, appalled neighbours have demanded action from North Devon Council to clampdown on the unauthorised development.
'I know planning authorities are under pressure and under-staffed but there seem to be an inertia about them in dealing with this,' one resident, who asked not to be named said.
'it's easier to go for retrospective planning than to battle it out... it's setting a dangerous precedent and this will keep happening.'
A spokesman for North Devon Council told MailOnline: 'We have been made aware of a potential breach of planning regulations at this location and our planning enforcement team is currently investigating the matter.
'We are committed to ensuring compliance with planning policy across the district and ensuring the environment is protected for the benefit of all our residents.'