Travellers move off Rugby leisure centre car park after being threatened with eviction

Travellers who had set up camp at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Centre car park behind Whitehall Rec moved off the site yesterday, February 3.

The travellers moved onto the site on Sunday, January 31, and Rugby Borough Council quickly began the process of court action to get the legal power to evict them.

And yesterday morning the courts granted the council that power, with an eviction arranged for today.

But upon receiving news of the court order yesterday, and facing the prospect of eviction, the travellers moved on at 5.37pm that afternoon.

Workers from Rugby council's Work Services Unit started their clean-up of the car park at 11.30am this morning, and when the Advertiser visited at 2pm the site had been returned to its former cleanliness.

In 2018, after a spate of unauthorised traveller encampments across Rugby parks caused disruption, Rugby council applied for and received an injunction, meaning individuals or groups who set up an unauthorised camp on borough council land can be immediately arrested for contempt of court - with sentences ranging from a fine to imprisonment.

That order has since expired, prompting the need for Rugby council to once again have to apply to court for an eviction order each time there is an unauthorised encampment on council land.