Travellers occupy Newark Sports and Fitness Centre carpark for second time in weeks

Travellers illegally occupied a leisure centre carpark for four days, prompting a call for stronger sanctions and better preventative measures to be made available by government.

The group left of their own volition on Sunday after the legal department at Newark and Sherwood District Council sought to have them evicted from the carpark of the Newark Sports and Fitness Centre, on Lord Hawke Way.

It was the second illegal encampment of the site in recent weeks. The first saw a group evicted.

A council spokesman said: On Thursday last week, a group of Travellers arrived and unlawfully camped at the Newark Sports and Fitness Centre carpark.

"As is the always the case, the council quickly served a legal notice to secure their removal but between then and when the group left on Sunday, a large quantity of rubbish was left at the site as well as disruption caused to the operation of the leisure centre.

District council leader David Lloyd said: “This is so frustrating. I’m utterly fed up with these repeated and illegal encampments.

"The council and the police did as much as we could to shift the group quickly but that still wasn’t quick enough.

"We’re continually wasting time and money dealing with these encampments and the public quite rightly wonder why it’s allowed to keep happening.

"We need some new or different powers and some stronger sanctions from national government to prevent and better tackle this problem."