Redlands Liberal Democrats

Unwelcome guests

A bit of good news as the caravan that was parked on Bamburgh Close on Hexham estate has left. Residents contacted us to complain about the fact people were sleeping in this caravan and that they were leaving a lot of rubbish on the estate.

The situation was complicated by the fact that the caravan was parked on land owned by Places for People Housing Assocation so sorting the problem out wasn't directly the Council's responsibility. Also apparently the property associated with the caravan is actually sublet to someone who is not connected to the HA making things even more difficult.

I'm pleased to say that after Kirsten and I contacted the Neighbourhood Officer and Places for People, the caravan and it's occupants have now left the estate. In addition all the rubbish that was left nearby has also been cleared.

Cintra Avenue travellers: were lessons learned by RBC?

Earlier this year we joined residents in pressing for action by Reading Borough Council to prevent traveller incursions on the green at Cintra Avenue.

Going forward, I wanted to know if Council officers had learned from the delays and problems in relation to this issue so that future problems could be reduced if not avoided altogether.

See below the public question I put to the Lead Member for Environment, Cllr Paul Gittings, last Tuesday evening and the answer he gave:

Traveller Incursions on Public Open Spaces

"What lessons have been learned by the Council in relation to handling traveller incursions on public open spaces in Reading following recent problems on Cintra Avenue and does the Council have any plans to revise its policies to improve their effectiveness?"

REPLY by Councillor Hoskin (Lead Councillor for Culture and Sport):

"When travellers visit an open space, dealing with the problems this causes and moving the travellers from the site is given the highest priority by the Council’s Parks Team.

At Cintra Park there was a significant change in the pattern of traveller visits. In the past, 6 months could be expected to elapse between incursions. However, in April this year the first traveller encampment for many years arrived; this was followed 2 weeks after they left by a second incursion. A third visit followed about another 2 weeks after eviction of the second group, but they were quickly moved by the police as it included travellers from a previous incursion, contravening a court order obtained by the council. In June a new group of travellers moved into Reading and on to land at Cintra in the week during which work to secure the site was due to commence.
The increased likelihood of subsequent encampments quickly following an initial visit is now acknowledged, and steps to secure a site where possible and appropriate can be implemented more quickly. We are now able to source materials and labour more quickly to install barriers to make traveller access to sites more difficult, while minimising the visual impact on the landscape.
Given past experience with locks’ and steel work’s being cut, installing barriers will reduce the likelihood of further incursions, but cannot be 100% effective. This must considered alongside cost. An assessment is made on; the likelihood of subsequent visits, the impact travellers have on neighbouring properties, the ease and effectiveness of installing barriers and cost, to determine what action will be taken. In addition the likely impact of such action will also be considered, simply displacing the encampments a few hundred metres up the road may be counter productive and as well expensive. Installation of barriers is not always the most appropriate action.
In recent years the Council has been improving the way in which it deals with travellers. A traveller liaison officer has now been employed for over a year to co-ordinate the Council’s response to these incursions. This has resulted in better communication with the Police and enforcement bodies as well as ensuring that the Council undertakes its statutory welfare duties, particularly where travellers’ children are involved.

As part of this ongoing process of reviewing and improving how the Council deals with travellers, senior officers of both the Police and the Council are working to undertake joint enforcement to tackle both unauthorised encampments and associated unacceptable behaviour.
The Council is working to minimise the negative impact travellers make, but has to work within a statutory framework, limiting the action the Council and other enforcement bodies can take."

Hopefully the fencing that we successfully campaigned to get the Council to install on Cintra Avenue will do the trick, but only time will tell to see whether RBC has learned any lessons about how to handle these incursions better when they occur elsewhere in Reading in future.

Cintra meeting - and start of work

Thanks to everyone who came to the meeting last night on the lawns with Ben Stanesby and Andy Gillespie from the Council's Parks department. I think it is fair to say there was a lively debate!

For those who could not make it, we discussed the fencing around the perimeter of Cintra Avenue (which, after the meeting, will now include a section in front of 38 Christchurch Rd), a width restriction on one entrance to the service road (now around 2m, which should be good for cars but will stop vans and caravans). The other entrance will have a gate, and how the keys will be managed was discussed.
It was also agreed that the width restriction and gate will be set back from the road, at about the line of the trees.

We were all keen that the Council should get started as soon as possible, and I am pleased to say that they started work today. The work will take 2-3 weeks and we all said that we would like this to timescale to be shortened as much as possible, to prevent a recurrence of the traveller visits.

Finally, it was agreed to review the arrangements in 6 months time, to check that they have been working properly and to do any necessary tweaking.

Glenn, Daisy and I will keep the pressure on the Parks department to get the work done as soon as possible and to the best standard: after the delays and worries on this issue, it is very important the situation is rapidly brought to an end.

The Travellers return!

Unfortunately, the travellers have returned to Cintra Ave. Residents observed them arriving in the early hours of the morning (approx. 2am on 18 June 2008). The RBC parks manager and the council's traveller liaison officer have visited the site and served notice requesting that the travellers leave  immediately. They have, however, advised that they have no intention of doing so. As a consequence, the councils legal team will now begin the required legal process to regain possession of the land immediately.

For the last four incursions, we have been pushing for action from the Council. Unfortunately, they dragged their heals until the third incursion - at which point officers agreed that fencing was required, started to find funds, and proposed designs to us. Unfortunately, in the time its taken for all this to happen, another set of Travellers have arrived. We are escalating this issue as a matter of urgency so that as soon as this set of Travellers are evicted, the fencing can be installed. We are pushing officers for a time table so there is no time between eviction and installation for a further incursion. The issue of fencing Citra avenue was first raised by us in 2007!

Last time several gardens and an expensive gate system were damaged. Please do not hesitate to call the police if you experience any thing like this. The Reading Thames Valley Police number is 0845 8 505 505, and the ASB line is 08456 605 2222

Cintra Avenue - proposals

Just had the following update from the Council. Please use the Comments facility or email us to let us know what you think! We will be visiting the area with these pictures over the weekend to take people's views.

(Quoted from Council email)

The proposal for the securing of Cintra Park involves fencing the perimeter of the site using wooden posts, approximately 60cm above the ground, with a 50mm steel bar running through it.  I have attached a photo that shows a similar section of fencing (left). This option is bespoke and would require the posts to be made to our requirements.

A similar 'off the peg option' is shown in the other photo (left), the posts would be shorter than those in the photo.  In addition to this they have a curved top and slightly smaller bar at 41mm. 

A metal gate will be supplied on one entrance to the private road and two 'bell' style bollards will be positioned at the other entrance to restrict access by larger vehicles.  The bell bollards will be similar to those near the Tylers Rest on the Norcot Road. 

The other two images display the options that we are proposing for the location of the fence, gate and the bell bollards.  .

1. On one option the fence follows the boundary of the road.... (double click to expan

2.... and the other allows room for delivery vehicles to be off the road whilst waiting for the gate to be opened or whilst walking to one of the houses (double click to expand picture)

Cintra Avenue - update

I had a follow up meeting with the Parks lead officer at the end of last week looking at potential approaches for Cintra Avenue.

The challenge is to find a way that makes parking caravans on the lawn difficult without making life impossible for local residents and affecting the park visually. They are proposing low-rise fencing, gating and bollards. Electronic copies of the proposal should be available this week and when they are we will post them here.

Glenn and I have already visited Cintra Ave to get a feel for how the proposals would work on the site (thankyou to everyone who came up and had a chat as we were doing it). Once we get a fair copy of the proposals we will visit people close by to see what they think.

The Council are committed to starting work in June, time to complete will depend on tree roots, utility pipes and such.

Cintra Avenue: third visit from travellers

A quick note to say that Kirsten, Glenn and I are pressing Reading Borough Council to protect Cintra Avenue as a top priority, following the third traveller incursion in the area so far this year. We are very frustrated by the lack of action from RBC.

I checked my old emails today and found that I originally raised this issue back in March 2007! Cost has been a real issue in terms of securing the green space, but as a number of local people have pointed out, the cost to the taxpayer of court orders and clean ups could well have been far higher than simply installing bollards or fencing.

We are aware that local residents are very worried about the situation and we are doing everything in our power to support them.

Kirsten and Glenn are meeting Parks officers again this week to press for funding to be allocated to secure the green space as a matter of urgency. They will report back from that meeting here.

We heared this morning that the Police plan to serve a Section 61 notice on the latest group today, with the hope of evicting them shortly. Following pressure from Kirsten, the Police have also agreed to increase high-visibility patrols in and around the area.

If you are concerned about this issue and want to help our campaign for urgent action please contact Reading Borough Council's Parks team. If you are concerned about crime or anti-social behaviour in the area please contact the Police on 0845 8 505 505.

Cintra - options

Glenn and I met this morning with the senior officer for Parks regarding the situation with the travellers. You may recall from earlier posts that the Council will be going to court next Thursday 15th May to remove them.

The discussion this morning was about what might be done to prevent future incursions.

At the extreme, one could imagine fencing the boundary of the lawns and the length of the service roadway leading to houses 3,5,7,9 but this would likely be both expensive, visually intrusive and inconvenient.
Another option might be to dig a series of wooden posts into the lawns, as has been done in the Woodley area, but this would spoil the appearance of the lawns.

It appears that the best option is probably to put a knee-rail around the boundary of the lawns on Cintra, and limit the width of vehicles using the service road (there would need to be a gate for maintenance vehicles / delivery trucks).

The money for this would need to be drawn from an available budget, such as section 106 money from contributions from developers, and would need to be approved by the Council's Decision Book process. This puts the likely timescale for implementation back towards the end of June.

We have asked Officers to work up the detail of the proposals and will be finding out what local residents think before proceeding, but there are, at least, some options on the table

Travellers return to Cintra Avenue

We are aware that a group of Travellers has set up camp once again on the green at Cintra Avenue. RBC Parks Officers and the Police have attended the site. I received the following update from Parks this morning:

We attended site shortly after they arrived with the police and have asked them to leave the land immediately.

We are expecting a decision from the police tomorrow as to whether they are willing to use their powers to remove this group. If not, we will use the court process to regain possession as quickly as possible. I will update you once I know more."

Residents with concerns should contact the Parks Team direct on 0800 626540 and the Neighbourhood Police Team on 0845 8 505 505.

We will continue to discuss with Parks officers what preventative action can be taken to protect this valuable open space from future incursions. Find out more background on these discussions here.

Protecting open space on Cintra Avenue

RBC Parks officers have been in touch today to tell me that they hope to issue legal proceedings in the next couple of days calling on the travellers on Cintra Avenue to leave the site. 

The north Whitley Police team area also aware and we have asked them to include the area in their patrols.

RBC officers have said that at present they cannot advise exactly how long this process will take, but would expect it to be between and 7-14 days from the date they travellers arrived, depending on the availability of the court.

Kirsten and I have asked RBC Parks officers to urgently investigate what can be done to prevent a recurrence in the future, perhaps by introducing bollards or fencing to prevent people driving on the green and protect the open space.

You may remember that last year we campaigned vigorously to get RBC to take action to stop people parking on the green area and damaging the roots of trees etc.

Visitor parking has been significantly reduced, which is good news, but clearly no parking signs will not stop determined individuals or groups driving onto it or parking there. Given recent events this clearly needs to be sorted.

I found out last year that the trees on Cintra Avenue are well over 100 years old and are shown as an avenue of trees on a map of the area dated 1879.  The former Sutton Seeds family, who owned the
demolished Cintra Lodge, put the land on which they stand into a Trust.Reading Borough Council now manages that Trust.

Open space is in very limited supply in Redlands and much of central Reading. The Lib Dems will continue to campaign that these valuable 'green lungs' are safeguarded for the future.

We will post any further udpates here.