Gipsies shock for Pebsham residents

Hastings Borough council has granted permission for a site on Freshfields near Pebsham tip to be used as an official emergency stop-over site for travellers to stay up to 28 days a year.

The decision is being seen by beleaguered residents as another blow to their quality of life.

Residents already have to put up with smells, noise and pollution from the landfill site and the waste water treatment works with the prospect of more waste facilities at Pebsham on the horizon.

They also have bad memories from when travellers have pitched up at fields near Glyne Gap in pervious summers.

Seabourne Road resident Kimberly Jones said: "In the past they have caused trouble - stealing from gardens, intimidating residents, leaving a lot of rubbish and generally causing a nuisance.

"Some of them are OK but now and again you get a really bad bunch and it makes life difficult.

"I think we're got enough to put up with but we're also helpless because it's a Hastings Borough Council decision and we live in Rother."

Husband Russell added: "It's not a very sensible site being so near to people's houses.

"It seems this area gets dumped on at every possible opportunity."

Hastings Borough Council agrees the site is not ideal and is working with Rother to find an alternative.

Under the current arrangements the park will be closed once it has been used for 28 days every year.

Emma Nuttal, from the Friends, Families and Travellers organisation, which lobbies for travellers' rights, welcomed the news.

She said there are not enough sites for the UK's estimated 300,000 travellers so many are effectively homeless.

She added: "It's a brilliant first step for the council to take."