With its lush green fields and horses grazing on sun-dappled pastures, it’s hard to imagine a more tranquil spot than the country lanes on the outskirts of the Cheshire village of Burtonwood on a summer’s day.
So, on the evening of Friday, May 23, the residents of the houses dotted along Tan House Lane and Farmer’s Lane, which it curves into, were looking forward to enjoying the Bank Holiday weekend in their bucolic hideaways. But they were in for a very rude awakening.
‘They came in en masse, truck after truck after truck, all through the night as they got to work,’ says one despairing local. ‘It was a massive convoy, like an Army operation. The noise was unbearable – you couldn’t sleep.’
This invasion of machines, including bulldozers, headed for a six-acre plot of greenbelt land recently acquired by travellers.
Once there, the vehicles ‘tore it apart’, in the words of another horrified homeowner who lives about a hundred yards away.
‘The machinery was so big some of the fixtures in the house were shaking,’ he says. ‘It was scary, like an earthquake. At first we didn’t know what it was.’
In fact, what was happening over last month’s bank holiday weekend was the building of a traveller camp – cynically and carefully timed to avoid being stopped by the local council, because it was effectively shut until the following Tuesday.
The work was carried out with such ruthless efficiency that after 72 hours of near non-stop labour (with the site lit up like ‘Blackpool Illuminations’ at night, according to another resident who does not want to be named) the once green and pleasant plot now resembles a soulless gravel car park surrounded by an inhospitable 10ft-high wooden fence.
It is a modus operandi which has become depressingly familiar across the country over bank holiday weekends in recent years.
Travellers carry out brazen ‘landgrabs’ when the authorities go on a three-day holiday, after either purchasing sites or setting up camp on land they don’t own without permission. Either way, they know that time is on their side.
In the case of Burtonwood, near Warrington, it all began that Friday evening with caravans driving on to a far corner of the plot, followed by the heavy machinery and trucks at about 6pm. Then the work began.
One local estimates it involved taking up and removing 53 loads of soil and putting down 53 loads of hardcore. ‘With all the machinery and the fencing they put up, I’d say the work cost £40,000 to £50,000,’ he adds.
The triangular plot of land off Tan House Lane – previously owned by former village residents – had been advertised for sale with an asking price of £85,000 on property website Rightmove. ‘Nestled in the serene surroundings of Burtonwood, this plot presents a rare chance to provide a spacious paddock,’ read the Rightmove blurb.
The previous owners of the land, who are understood to have moved out of the village two years ago but kept the six-acre plot until its recent sale, were unavailable for comment.
Villagers have not blamed them for what has happened, because they take the view they could not have foreseen what the new owners would do.
At least two locals are believed to have put in alternative offers, thought to have been for the full asking price, with the intention of using it as a paddock.
The talk in Burtonwood when the Mail visited this week was that the land had been bought for above the asking price, with some claiming that the travellers, or one of them, paid £100,000 for it, although that figure has not been officially confirmed.
What is clear is that the travellers – apart from apparently having deep pockets – seem hell-bent on making the plot a permanent home. They have called it ‘Burtonwood Park’, with that grandiose-sounding name now emblazoned in gold letters on a black sign they have put up near the camp’s entrance, along with a small, black, metal letterbox.
While they appear to have purchased the land legitimately, by converting it into a camp and carrying out unauthorised work they have ridden roughshod over planning regulations.
‘Green Belt’ is a well known land protection that prevents urban sprawl, helps preserve the countryside and maintain the character of existing settlements.
The travellers have told villagers that they can do what they want because they own the land and they are making a retrospective planning application.
Meanwhile, Warrington Borough Council has said it is aware of the ‘potential breach of planning control’ and is ‘investigating’ the development as well as issuing an enforcement notice.
In a statement on Thursday it added: ‘The national planning system allows for an application to be made retrospectively, and we understand that the developer may seek to submit a valid planning application.’
Villagers have described the situation as ‘ridiculous’ and said they don’t expect the travellers to be gone soon – if ever.
‘Similar council investigations have dragged on for months. And if the retrospective planning application is refused, the travellers can always appeal and drag it out even longer,’ says one.
Tensions in the village are now running so high that many of the nearly 50 people who attended a surgery held by local independent councillor Stuart Mann, coincidentally arranged for the day after the ‘invasion’, were ‘in tears’ because of the ‘shock and awe’ manner of the interlopers’ arrival the night before and the speed with which the work was done.
Another worried resident says: ‘Travellers are a law unto themselves. My gut feeling is that they won’t get moved and we’re stuck with them. It’s devastating.
‘We’ve worked so hard to get where we are and have a nice house here, and then somebody just comes and annihilates everything we’ve strived for in life. It’s bound to devalue properties here, no matter how lovely those properties are, or make them difficult to sell. Who’d want to move near to that?’
Burtonwood was famous during the Second World War for having a major US airbase nearby. Nowadays the village, not far from the M62, has a population of about 3,500, with the main residential area, pub and shops at the other end of Farmer’s Lane from the traveller camp.
Niomi Casey, 32, an accountant, and her husband Kieran Casey, 33, a sales director, only moved into their five-bedroom detached house two months ago.
In a tucked away position, the estimated worth of the building was £750,000.
But recent events have cast a pall over what they hoped would be a dream move to the countryside with their two children.
Mrs Casey says: ‘On the Friday when it started we heard it all through the night. My partner rang the police, we couldn’t sleep. The police said it was a council issue in terms of noise and we’d have to wait till the Tuesday when the council came back.
‘The travellers timed it perfectly. They know what they’re doing and how to time it to make the most out of it.
‘We moved here from a Victorian terrace house in Salford. We wanted outside space for the children and rural surroundings. Now we’re thinking what does it mean for the value of our house if we wanted to sell in the future?
‘It was a big investment for us. Some people are speculating as much as £200,000 could be knocked off the value of their houses.’
The owners of another house, which has three bedrooms and several acres of land with an estimated value of £800,000, said they were also worried about the ‘stigma’ attached to traveller sites and how being near to one might impact property prices.
Sharon Saunders, 68, a retired legal assistant who has lived in her detached house nearby for 34 years, has concerns, too. ‘We never have any trouble here, it’s a quiet place,’ she says. ‘I’ve always walked my German shepherd, Tia, along the dirt track in front of where they’ve built the camp.
‘Now it’s unnerving going down there. There are fears the prices of properties will depreciate, and whereas it was all fields it’s not any more. In the past, that plot has been rented out and horses kept there. It annoys me that the council can’t put a stop to what’s going on more quickly.
‘Another resident was talking to one of the travellers in the Co-op in the village who told him the reason they bought the land was because they were sick of being moved on from one car park to another.’
Villagers are angry that, while strict planning controls apply to them, the travellers appear to be able to ‘get away with anything’ by flouting the rules.
Around 120 people attended a meeting with local councillors in the village hall on Monday. They pointed to a recent planning decision which is available to read on the council’s website.
The proposal was to convert a barn in a field opposite where the traveller camp now is, and also on Green Belt, into three dwellings. It was refused because the design of the proposed buildings ‘would not adequately reflect the agricultural character of the area’ and would be contrary to the Warrington Local Plan.
When the Mail visited the traveller camp on Wednesday – in the week when thousands of travellers and gipsies were heading for the annual Appleby Horse Fair in Cumbria – the diggers and trucks had long since departed and the site was occupied instead by 13 caravans, six vans and two cars. Aerial photographs also showed that behind the perimeter fence, the plot is being partitioned into individual, smaller plots.
An attempt to give the travellers the opportunity to comment was gruffly rebuffed and they closed the front gate. Later that day, they put a metal gate up across the dirt track where Miss Saunders likes to walk her dog.
Mr Mann, the councillor, said the track is a public right of way and he has contacted the council’s public rights of way officer. Mr Mann has been at the forefront of raising residents’ concerns about the camp with the Labour-run council after receiving ‘hundreds’ of emails.
Scottish Power, which supplies electricity to the area and investigates alleged unauthorised attempts to tap into the mains supply, had also been informed, he says. ‘As a member of the community myself, I’m dismayed at what happened and how it happened – and would hope everyone involved would get due permissions in order to change the use of their property.’
Nigel Catlow, vice chairman of Burtonwood and Westbrook Parish Council, has described it as a ‘very serious and fast-moving issue’. In a letter to the council, he wrote: ‘The landowners appear to be in serious breach, making the most of the Bank Holiday and the council being on a long weekend.
‘This is of great concern to many residents and council taxpayers in Burtonwood and the wider area of Warrington West.’
For its part, Warrington Borough Council says it is monitoring the situation and the public are free to express their comments once a valid retrospective planning application is received. ‘We appreciate there may be strong feeling within the community in relation to the works undertaken and, subsequently, to any related planning application,’ says a spokesman.
‘Any representation should be made in writing to the council, based on the details submitted within a valid application, so that they can be considered in the decision-making process.
‘In the meantime, we will continue to monitor and investigate the situation on-site.’
For the time-being – and probably months and months to come – it seems the unlucky residents of Burtonwood are likely to be stuck with the unwanted new arrivals.