Basildon site action on 19 September

After watching dispatches last night in the vain hope of trying to understand the situation better i haven't much changed my mind set.
The programe reported that most of the legal side of the site was left empty and derilict. It didn't explain why. It also reported that with the looming eviction many travellers have either left or moved back over to the legal side leaving just a few on the illegal side with a load of people who don't have anything to do with the site at all and who quite frankly should be minding there own buisness elswhere.
I suspect it will end up with a stand off between the police and baliffs and these "Supporters" and a few travellers and end covering the news with bad press for all involved.
 
Harmergeddon said:
The point is if we all decided to do this where would we end up? The planning laws may be a farse but they hopefully keep a rein on who can build what and where. I would leave the country very quickly if planning laws were removed allowing houses to be put up where ever people chose to. It would ruin the country side.
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Ok guys. If we all decide to not use campsites, as required by the law, and camp on other peoples land without authority then chasos will reign. People will park motorhomes all over the place and there will be no space for other to enjoy the countryside. If the planners find that we are living in a vehicle they can move us on and prevent us from returning within 3 months according to another law.

How can people who advocate WILDCAMPING, be so blind to the fact that they are also not conforming to the law of the land.

According to the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 For Human habitation we are only allowed to park on unlicenced land for no more than 2 nights with The Landowners permission.

The Public Order Act provides powers for Planning Officers, to remove people and vehicles that people are living in, from the Highway and its verges etc as well as other land without the permission of the landowner.

"Let those that are without sin cast the first stone".
 
As wild campers we are basically exploiting the fact that it takes time to catch up with us. But it's true we are technically breaking the law, trespassing camping on private land without permission, or by using highways land for living on.

So I don't think we are in a position where we can criticise travellers. In this case they are not even trespassing, just falling foul of planning. They are doing similar stuff to us only longer term.
 
Firefox said:
As wild campers we are basically exploiting the fact that it takes time to catch up with us. But it's true we are technically breaking the law, trespassing camping on private land without permission, or by using highways land for living on.

So I don't think we are in a position where we can criticise travellers. In this case they are not even trespassing, just falling foul of planning. They are doing similar stuff to us only longer term.
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i dont leave crap behind or sh*t in the woods etc.
 
cooljules said:
i dont leave crap behind or sh*t in the woods etc.
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Hi Cooljules

You and I may not behave in this way, but in discussions on this and other forums MOTORHOMERS have boasted (like the traveler children on the Dispatches program) that they do not use the toilet in their vans and DO go into the wood instead. Some also dump human waste in carrier bags in litter baskets at parking stops.

We are not all the same, in the same way that all travelers are not the same.

It is a simple matter to dig a pit as we did in the scouts to dispose of your body waste. Done in the correct manner it does not pollute. There is no excuse to just Sh*t and walk away.

If you pull into many a UK lay-by you can smell that it is not just the Traveling community that sh*t in the bushes.
 
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John Thompson said:
How can people who advocate WILDCAMPING, be so blind to the fact that they are also not conforming to the law of the land.
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I'm not blind! How dare you suggest such a thing! :mad1: Please i prefer the term hypocrite! ;)
 
John Thompson said:
How can people who advocate WILDCAMPING, be so blind to the fact that they are also not conforming to the law of the land.

According to the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 For Human habitation we are only allowed to park on unlicenced land for no more than 2 nights with The Landowners permission.

The Public Order Act provides powers for Planning Officers, to remove people and vehicles that people are living in, from the Highway and its verges etc as well as other land without the permission of the landowner.

"Let those that are without sin cast the first stone".
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Sorry, John, but this is not accurate. There is no national law that prevents sleeping in vehicles (although some local authorities have passed by-laws that prohibit it in certain specified locations). Also, the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 does not COMPEL motorhome users to stay on campsites and the section of the Public Order Act 1986 that allows the police to remove tresspassers specifically excludes the public highway and adjacent areas. If our vehicles are properly taxed and insured then we have a legal right to park within the law and to sleep in our vehicles. Of course, many of us (including me!) have parked where we strictly shouldn't have but it is wrong to say that simply by wildcamping we are breaking the law (if that was true then this website would have fallen foul of the law and Phil would have been prosecuted!). But I do agree that too many people who have cast stones themselves are willing to cast them at other travellers.
 
John Thompson said:
Hi Cooljules

You and I may not behave in this way, but in discussions on this and other forums MOTORHOMERS have boasted (like the traveler children on the Dispatches program) that they do not use the toilet in their vans and DO go into the wood instead. Some also dump human waste in carrier bags in litter baskets at parking stops.

We are not all the same, in the same way that all travelers are not the same.

It is a simple matter to dig a pit as we did in the scouts to dispose of your body waste. Done in the correct manner it does not pollute. There is no excuse to just Sh*t and walk away.

If you pull into many a UK lay-by you can smell that it is not just the Traveling community that sh*t in the bushes.
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Hi John, i can see what your saying, when i was younger i lived out in the wild, here and in other countries, was nothing better than waking with the birds and wildlife...but theres a huge difference between digging a lavvi and not leaving any visiable trace, and like on that tv programme (which i saw late last night), leaving poo and bog roll everywhere.

i would often wake near a lake or sea, having slept under fishermans boats upside down, but there was no sign i was ever there, even in the worst storms for years.
 
John H said:
Sorry, John, but this is not accurate. There is no national law that prevents sleeping in vehicles (although some local authorities have passed by-laws that prohibit it in certain specified locations). Also, the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 does not COMPEL motorhome users to stay on campsites and the section of the Public Order Act 1986 that allows the police to remove tresspassers specifically excludes the public highway and adjacent areas. If our vehicles are properly taxed and insured then we have a legal right to park within the law and to sleep in our vehicles. Of course, many of us (including me!) have parked where we strictly shouldn't have but it is wrong to say that simply by wildcamping we are breaking the law (if that was true then this website would have fallen foul of the law and Phil would have been prosecuted!). But I do agree that too many people who have cast stones themselves are willing to cast them at other travellers.
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having seen phils foto on here, it does look like it came from a police mugshot book :)
 
John H said:
Sorry, John, but this is not accurate. There is no national law that prevents sleeping in vehicles (although some local authorities have passed by-laws that prohibit it in certain specified locations). Also, the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 does not COMPEL motorhome users to stay on campsites and the section of the Public Order Act 1986 that allows the police to remove tresspassers specifically excludes the public highway and adjacent areas. If our vehicles are properly taxed and insured then we have a legal right to park within the law and to sleep in our vehicles. Of course, many of us (including me!) have parked where we strictly shouldn't have but it is wrong to say that simply by wildcamping we are breaking the law (if that was true then this website would have fallen foul of the law and Phil would have been prosecuted!). But I do agree that too many people who have cast stones themselves are willing to cast them at other travellers.
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Hi John

While I agree that The Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 does not compel us to use a site. I still hold that the Act states that it is an offence to permit a caravan to be used for human habitation on land except in special circumstances or with a site licence. Whilst we may not be procecuted, the law is still being broken by our action of parking without authority.

The other Act I was refering to was Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 and not the Public Order Act 1986.

Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 33 Part V
Powers to remove unauthorised campers

Section 77
Power of local authority to direct unauthorised campers to leave land..

(1)If it appears to a local authority that persons are for the time being residing in a vehicle or vehicles within that authority’s area—.
(a)on any land forming part of a highway;.
(b)on any other unoccupied land; or.
(c)on any occupied land without the consent of the occupier,.
the authority may give a direction that those persons and any others with them are to leave the land and remove the vehicle or vehicles and any other property they have with them on the land.
(2)Notice of a direction under subsection (1) must be served on the persons to whom the direction applies, but it shall be sufficient for this purpose for the direction to specify the land and (except where the direction applies to only one person) to be addressed to all occupants of the vehicles on the land, without naming them..
(3)If a person knowing that a direction under subsection (1) above has been given which applies to him—.
(a)fails, as soon as practicable, to leave the land or remove from the land any vehicle or other property which is the subject of the direction, or.
(b)having removed any such vehicle or property again enters the land with a vehicle within the period of three months beginning with the day on which the direction was given,.
he commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.
(4)A direction under subsection (1) operates to require persons who re-enter the land within the said period with vehicles or other property to leave and remove the vehicles or other property as it operates in relation to the persons and vehicles or other property on the land when the direction was given..
(5)In proceedings for an offence under this section it is a defence for the accused to show that his failure to leave or to remove the vehicle or other property as soon as practicable or his re-entry with a vehicle was due to illness, mechanical breakdown or other immediate emergency..
(6)In this section—.
“land” means land in the open air;
“local authority” means—

(a) in Greater London, a London borough or the Common Council of the City of London;

(b) in England outside Greater London, a county council, a district council or the Council of the Isles of Scilly;

(c) in Wales, a county council or a county borough council;

“occupier” person entitled to possession of the land by virtue of an estate or interest held by him;

“vehicle” includes—
(a) any vehicle, whether or not it is in a fit state for use on roads, and includes any body, with or without wheels, appearing to have formed part of such a vehicle, and any load carried by, and anything attached to, such a vehicle; and

(b) a caravan as defined in section 29(1) of the M1 Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960;

and a person may be regarded for the purposes of this section as residing on any land notwithstanding that he has a home elsewhere.

(7) Until 1st April 1996, in this section “local authority” means, in Wales, a county council or a district council.
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We live in a very restrictive country as far as Motorhomes are concerned.
 
I don't think it is restrictive to ask or provide for the removal of a vehicle on highways land after the due process has been served.

Such removal could be for maintenance, road works, highway improvement, or obstruction of sight lines etc. In most cases wild campers would be long gone, or if not, preprepared to move to accommodate such things.
 
it is a mug shot ,he just cut the numbers off the bottom :lol-049::help:
 
it's defiantly not a mug shot!! they always make us take our hats off :scared:
 
oldish hippy said:
no its a surgicaly attached item so cannot be remove lol
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Correct - to keep his brains in - :hammer: have to watch what I say lads remember he is the boss :king: and without him at the head this site wouldn't be what it is.:drive:
 
John Thompson said:
Hi John

While I agree that The Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 does not compel us to use a site. I still hold that the Act states that it is an offence to permit a caravan to be used for human habitation on land except in special circumstances or with a site licence. Whilst we may not be procecuted, the law is still being broken by our action of parking without authority.

The other Act I was refering to was Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 and not the Public Order Act 1986.



We live in a very restrictive country as far as Motorhomes are concerned.
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Hi John,

If you read the section of the 1994 Act you have quoted carefully it depends on the words "residing" and that the highways authority "may" take action. This is a solicitors dream because you can argue forever over the meanings of those words. I think the critical thing for us is that if you contact the department of Transport and ask the specific question as to whether or not there is a law banning sleeping in legally taxed and insured vehicles on the highway they will be forced to admit there isn't. However, I don't think anyone would argue with your conclusion that this is a restrictive country as far as motorhomes are concerned!
 
english oak

well im ready for tomorrow, just polished my oak club (channa) ready for clearance duties,just cannt beat the sound of good old english oak on irish PLANKS :cry: :mad: :mad: :hammer:
 
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