“It is heavy-handed, unfair, aggressive, disproportionate and disappointing.” – Traveller family anger over Derbyshire eviction order
“It is heavy-handed, unfair, aggressive, disproportionate and disappointing.” These are the words of Mark Simmonds, who is representing the Traveller family the Sykes, currently living in caravans on a field in Foxholes Lane, a mile north of Tansley.
Mr Simmonds said the Sykes family, none of whom can read or write, were handed an 11th-hour eviction order by Derbyshire Dales District Council on Thursday, August 14, while staying on private property with the landowner’s permission.
The eviction notice included details of a court summons to the County Court in Nottingham for the next day, Friday, August 15, Mr Simmonds said.
Mr Simmonds said that he dashed back from a family holiday to make emergency arrangements for the family to help understand the order and explain it to them and also to organise a last minute legal representation for them to the courts.
The order was for the family to leave the land and for works on the site – to lay hardstanding – to be removed.
A week adjournment was agreed by the courts on Friday, along with moving the hearing to Derby for Friday, August 22, to allow sufficient time to organise legal representation.
Mr Simmonds says a planning application to turn the current Foxholes Lane site into a two-pitch Traveller site, filed in July and due to be decided in three weeks’ time, ought to be concluded first before any eviction proceedings.
He said that the Sykes family includes three adults and a child.
Mr Simmonds said: “To our utter shock and outrage the family called us to say they had received a huge pile of court papers and we had to come back from holiday to get a solicitor in time. It does not seem fair or proportionate.
“We have had positive communication with the council over the planning application and we had no early conversations about this when the council was merrily working away on this.
“It is unfair and unprofessional. This left us with less than 12 hours to prepare for court. We were just utterly flabbergasted.
“It all felt like an ambush. It is so unfair. It is incredibly aggressive and disproportionate. It is an extremely hardline and heavy-handed approach.
“Other councils do not issue eviction notices for families on private property where they are not causing any harm.
“They are instead looking to steamroll us ahead of planning and it is disappointing and very unfortunate.
“They could be kicked off this land to spend weeks living on roads and in laybys with a young child only to be allowed to go back, when they are not doing any great harm and no-one really had even noticed them.”
A district council spokesperson said: “This is a legal matter and, as such, we won’t be commenting ahead of the scheduled court hearing.”
The Foxholes Lane site sits around a mile west from a once-touted district council Traveller site in Knabhall Lane, a former landfill, which was eventually dropped in 2022 due to public opposition and cost.
To date, the council has a legal obligation to two homeless Traveller families and must find permanent sites on which to accommodate them.
This year, the authority has rejected its own plans to temporarily accommodate one family on a car park in Old Station Close, Rowsley, and approved its application to temporarily accommodate one family on the Matlock railway station car park.