Editorial - 2nd April 2009
The outcome of a long court battle to evict two traveller families from a car park in the city’s enterprise park is not good for Swansea Council. The families are staying, and the council is left with red faces.
The cause of the embarrassment is a meeting between the families and council cabinet member John Hague. They reached a verbal agreement that the council would provide facilities if the families moved to another part of a car park.
Unfortunately, nobody told the rest of the cabinet, or the council’s lawyers, when they subsequently decided to seek a possession order for the entire enterprise park. A situation described by the judge as a failure on the part of councillors, officers, or both.
The council will attempt to salvage a little credit from the fact that the judge did allow the order to cover the rest of the enterprise park, which theoretically should deter any more travellers from camping there.
But even here there is a sting attached, with his references to the city’s overcrowded official sites, and its duty to provide enough temporary sites.
