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Brighton and Hove Council can’t get back eviction cost (From The Argus)
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Brighton and Hove Council can’t get back eviction cost
5:10pm Thursday 21st March 2013 in News
Rubbish left behind at Devil's Dyke
Owners of abandoned vehicles in an unauthorised encampment cannot be pursued for costs, according to council chiefs.
Van dwellers were forced to move off land near Devil’s Dyke Road in Brighton last week after spending more than four months on the site.
After a number of vehicles were left abandoned on the site in the South Downs National Park, Brighton and Hove City Council towed them away.
Despite initially saying they would pursue the owners for costs, town hall lawyers have now said this is either not possible or too expensive.
Conservative councillor Dawn Barnett said: “Yet again the taxpayer has been lumbered with this cost.
“It’s wrong and absolutely disgraceful.
“The council should have scrapped all the vehicles, not allowed them free parking before the owners can come and pick them up.”
Of the 28 trucks and caravans which made up the original site, 11 were abandoned.
A council spokesman said it had scrapped two as it did not know the owners and investigating would cost more than it could ever recoup.
Seized vehicles
This was despite the local authority saying immediately after the eviction that it would seek to pass costs on.
The spokesman added the other nine had been taken to the city car pound until the owners picked them up.
He said: “The law of the land prevents councils recouping costs where vehicles are seized as part of an eviction.
“This is an eviction, not a parking offence – and the rules are different.”
Flytipping problem
Pete West, the chairman of the council’s environment committee, said: “This administration and all previous ones have treated unauthorised traveller encampments in the same way – according to the law of the land.
“Residents understandably wanted these vehicles moved.
“We’ve done that and there is a cost involved.
“Flytipping is a nationally widespread crime precisely because culprits are hard to identify and council resources for investigation are limited.”
Counting costs
It is estimated the encampment has cost the council more than £20,000.
This is without the costs of the clearance, which the local authority said it did not have.
Among those living at the camp were people from surrounding towns and cities who claimed to have fallen on hard times.
An eviction order was served in February but campers appealed, citing that they needed more time to leave the land.
The van dwellers moved off the site last Friday and are now in the Upper Lodges, near Stanmer Park.
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