- Do you live nearby? Email ruth.stainer@mailonline.co.uk
A group of travellers have broken through locks and invaded an affluent north London park, with up to 15 caravans illegally pitched up next to multi-million pound homes.
Coldfall Wood in the leafy suburb of Muswell Hill has become the latest site to become overrun with travellers, with images showing several vehicles parked up on the grass.
Amid the caravans and cars are camping chairs while dogs belonging to the group are also freely roaming the 35-acre public park.
Locks to the entrance of the ancient woodland appear to have been tampered with, suggesting the travellers have broken into the site.
Outside of the entrance to the leafy park, ‘keep clear of the gate’ is written in chalk on the ground, though it is unknown whether this was written prior to the travellers’ arrival.
Described as a ‘local nature reserve’, Coldfall Wood is surrounded by playing fields, public allotments and affluent residential streets.
Featuring large detached properties worth millions, the picturesque suburb is home to a number of celebrities including the likes of James McAvoy, Peter Capaldi, John Savident and former Masterchef host John Torode.
But now, it appears to have become the latest site filled with travellers with wheelbarrows laying abandoned by the group.
Elsewhere in Muswell Hill, two youngsters, believed to be travellers, were spotted being transported by horse and cart.
In 2018, nearby Albert Road Recreational Ground also became subject to an illegal traveller site, with three caravans, a camper van and Ford Transit spotted parked on the grass just yards from a children’s playground.
It comes as the number of ‘illegal’ traveller sites being set up across the UK is on the rise as local councils are becoming increasingly unable to remove them, a planning enforcement officer has claimed.
New planning policy announced by Labour housing secretary Angela Rayner in December will force councils to release green belt land for travellers to create permanent encampments if there is an ‘unmet need’.
At present neither temporary or permanent travellers sites are allowed on green belt land as they fail to qualify as ‘very special circumstances’ – but that is about to change.
In the original consultation published to the National Planning Policy Framework in August, the document states: ‘We intend our proposals to support the release of green belt land to address unmet needs for traveller sites.’
The response to the consultation, published in December, made clear that proposals should not be regarded as ‘inappropriate’ in cases where there is an ‘unmet need’ for the type of development – including traveller sites.
Over the past two months, scores of communities across the UK have seen unauthorised camps springing up in isolated fields, prized rural green belts and protected national parks.
The blight has affected villages and towns in Buckinghamshire, West Sussex, Nottinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Gloucester, Devon, Worcestershire, Cheshire and in Hampshire’s New Forest, the Daily Mail has previously found.
Terrified locals say they are ‘powerless’ to act, with some fearful of reprisals for speaking out against the shameless flouting of strict planning laws.
Meanwhile, furious MPs have lambasted the travellers’ brazen tactics, which they say makes a ‘mockery’ of the building development rules millions of law-abiding Britons are forced to abide by.
However, those breaching the rules have insisted they are doing it because of the nationwide glut of official sites, and the ‘stigma’ nomadic residents in the traveller and gypsy communities face staying at the road side.
‘We want to make a home where we can raise our children, giving them access to education and medical facilities that we never had growing up, we just want to improve our children’s futures and our families’ living standards,’ one traveller said.
In January this year South Gloucestershire Council announced the location of 100 new traveller sites, many of them on greenbelt sites.
The plan also includes safeguarding 15 existing sites for travelling showpeople – and one new site for travelling showpeople in Pucklechurch.
The local authority was reprimanded by a government planning inspector back in 2022 for a ‘history of policy failure’ after failing to provide sufficient land for travelling communities.
Haringey Council has been approached for comment.
