Traveller tells council 'you'll have to drag us off' in war over site

A father-of-three at war with his local council over an 'illegal' traveller camp has said his family will have to be 'dragged' off the site in order for them to leave.

The family of travellers have said they will resist any efforts to remove their caravans from behind a row of houses in Billingford, near Dereham in Norfolk.

Rhys Clapham pitched up with his partner, three children, over half a dozen large dogs and a Chihuahua on the land off Festival Road after buying the site earlier this year.

With a view to living at the site permanently, they submitted a planning application with Breckland Council to use the land for two residential static caravans and two touring caravans.

After being refused planning permission following dozens of objections from locals, he started completing sewage works on the one-acre site in January.

Later that that year, on October 5, when he gained permission from a neighbouring farmer to use their field for access he moved his static caravan onto the site.

The Clapham family have appealed the refused planning permission resulting in Breckland Council to issue an enforcement notice in a bid to remove the caravans, which the family are also appealing.

Mr Clapham says he’ll be made homeless if planning chiefs force him off and told the EDP 'they'll have to drag me off the site' for him to leave.

‘It’s a tiny little site. I don’t know what everyone’s problem is,' he said.

He added that people in area are 'literally yelling at us' and that he has had 'stuff stolen' while his dog kennels and caravans have been 'smashed up'.

Speaking to MailOnline, Mr Clapham, 34, said: ‘With travellers, you get so much stigma your whole life. For a long time, my family has not mentioned being travellers because of the attention and stigma. You don’t get work.

‘I’m from Norfolk. I grew up around Lakenham. My granddad and my dad lived in a house.

‘I came back to live as a traveller ten years ago because of my background and that’s the way I want my children to live.

‘I have a two-year-old and 13-year old boys and a 16-year-old daughter. They’ve pretty much known traveller life their whole life.

‘I would be a good neighbour. The [objections about being gypsies] is disgraceful. I’m not interested in causing any trouble.

‘There’s a few neighbours I get on with. But a few are bigots and the council has done everything for them. Some of the [online] comments have been horrendous. It’s racism and you would not get that with blacks and foreigners.

‘I paid for the land and am not asking anyone for money and I’m still getting grief.’

Mr Clapham previously lived on a traveller site in Stanfield with five families for around nine years but had to leave for personal reasons before buying the site in Billingford.

'I’ve done everything properly. I asked for permission for two static caravans and two touring caravans and ancillary works. I want a water supply and I have solar panels,' he said. 

The site is bordered by a small patch of woodland, and the lane onto it from the bottom of Festival Road has been widened and had hard core and gravel laid. 

Mr Clapham bought the site at auction from a man for £60,000 who’d bought it at auction after Breckland Council decided to sell it. He has since spent £40,000 on works at the site.

It had once been allotments but after the last allotment-holder left and nobody wanted to replace them it had turned to an informal bit of amenity land for residents on Festival Road who used to leave garden waste there and let their children play.

Mary Crofts and her daughter Kirsti own the farm and the fields around the proposed caravan site.

They agreed for Mr Clapham to move his caravan across their field when he first moved in. 

But then Ms Crofts got a letter from the parish council warning her that she could be subject to court action for helping Mr Clapham move onto the land.

Ms Crofts, a former parish councillor in Bilingford, said: ‘It was bullying. Well they can’t bully me.

‘As far as I was concerned, Rhys came around months ago and introduced himself. 

'He said he wanted to put a small caravan on the site and move his mum there because she wanted to grow vegetables.

‘Previously it had been allotments and then it was used as a dumping ground by residents. They used to throw tyres and rubbish over the fence onto my field where we have cattle.

‘I agreed to help Rhys. He’s a nice man. I thought “why not?”

‘I went to a parish meeting about the site and people were saying “We do not want thenm racing up and down the street” and I stood up and said “Why are you making an assumption there’s going to be a problem?”’

Kirsti said: ‘It’s that generalised assumption that travellers are going to thieve. That all travellers are going to be stealing your sheep.

‘He’s had that thrown at him. That he’s a traveller and he’s going to be trouble. He’s said it’s getting him down.’

Husband and wife, Tim and Dawn Pope, live on Festival Road and object to the land being used for caravans.

Tim, 62, a retired car dealer, said: ‘The council refused them permission down there and they just carry on. If I did that they’d be down on me in a flash.

‘I used to have a car site and we had 32 cars in our back garden at one point and I got an email from the council saying I was running a business from home without planning permission.

‘They [the Claphams] can do what they want and that’s what p****s me off.’

Dawn, 60, works as a carer in a care home. She said: ‘That used to be council allotments for the village and the kids used to play there.

‘We come out at night and all we hear are the dogs barking.’

Arthur Lake is chair of Billingford Parish Council, who lives off Festival Road, declined to comment when approached.

He said: ‘I do not wish to comment because the whole thing is going to appeal in January. I do not want to prejudice anything.

‘There’s a lot I could say but I do not wish to prejudice it.’

Mr Clapham’s planning agent, Stuart Caruthers, thinks he’ll get permission to stay calling it a 'typical gypsy planning application'.

Mr Carruthers said: 'There’s not enough places for anyone to live in the UK. Rhys and his family hadn’t anywhere else to go. He bought some land and plonked down his caravan.

‘Breckland District Council had Portacabins on the site in the 1980s. They were refurbishing houses to the north and people were staying in Portacabins.

‘Rhys’ main problem is nature. He was refused on six grounds, three of them on ecological grounds. I’m doing a bespoke habitat assessment for Rhys to put to the Planning Inspectorate.

‘I think he’ll get permission because of what is a housing crisis in the district and it affects everyone.’

One of the neighbours who has objected to the site, who did not want to be identified, said: ‘We are all angry at Breckland council. The land should never have been sold in the first place. We only found out it had been sold to the Claphams in January.

‘There were 36 to 37 objections. They moved a caravan on in October. There’s been bonfires down there and dogs yapping and they’ve blocked the cul de sac. The access road [Festival Road] is too small.

‘The police were called in November. The Clapham family had blocked a driveway and they were asked by a resident to move and the police came down.

‘I have been intimidated. He came and rang on my bell a couple of months ago but I was out walking the dog. 

'He called me a sausage, which I later found out means “w****r” in traveller speech. Another time he glared at me like I was a piece of s**t.'

Another objector, who did not give their name, said: ‘I have friends who are in the travelling community. I have no issue with them.

‘The council has been very underhand. Breckland Council has allowed this to happen.’

There is no suggestion that any of the neighbours named above is guilty of wrongdoing alleged by Mr Clapham. 

The Planning Inspectorate will hold a hearing on January 14 to decide whether to uphold the appeal by the Claphams against Breckland Council.

MailOnline has approached Breckland Council for comment.