Councillor calls for urgent action on travellers ‘crisis’ at kesgrave

Concerned residents close to a travellers’ site in Grange Farm, Kesgrave, have written a letter to local councillors urging action to be taken.

The letter, written by residents in Cardew Drift adjacent to the travellers’ site, have voiced their discontent at the noise made from generators, and nearby bushes being used as toilets.

The letter also details how nearby residents had laid down in front of additional vehicles entering the site on Friday evening, in an effort to stop more from settling. Now, a senior councillor has called for more to be done.

Christopher Hudson, Suffolk county councillor for Kesgrave and Rushmere St Andrew, said: “This case underlines very, very seriously that we have got a crisis. There should be a designated travellers’ site in Suffolk Coastal but there is nowhere – why not?

“I am shocked and appalled that this is happening, and that we have nowhere to offer these people.

“The residents in my county ward of Kesgrave and Rushmere are again faced with an insurmountable problem that could have been avoided if there was a place in the district for travellers to go.” A spokesman from Suffolk Coastal District Council confirmed that staff had visited the travellers on Tuesday to carry out the necessary welfare checks on the new arrivals from Friday, as well as monitoring the original group who appeared on Monday, June 15.

Residents in the area had also raised concern that with no road access to the land in between Cardew Drift and the Farmhouse pub, that travellers may have used the cycle path to access the land.

Two of the travellers had been undergoing urgent medical treatment in hospital, with both having been discharged, although one was readmitted over the weekend.

Mr Hudson added: “I think something must be done to make provisions in the district for somewhere they can be lawfully accounted for.”