Voices is the Dorset Echo's weekly youth page, written for young people by young people
Dorset Police and the Dorset Council have vowed to tackle the issue of travellers, but I don’t believe their word.
While the council appeared to deploy the Dorset Waste Partnership to clean up travellers’ mess at the Weymouth park-and-ride, they don’t seem so happy to take the initiative and prevent further issues.
A police spokeswoman said that “officers from the local neighbourhood policing team were liaising with the landowners and partner agencies” while Dorset Council are “working with (their) partners to resolve the situation as soon as possible.”
However, I’m afraid that those words don’t incite confidence that they’ll “resolve the situation.”
The council and police’s job involves taking action when the law is broken.
Plus, travellers need more places to go legally.
If they choose to break the law despite the legal alternatives - settling in car parks without paying for tickets etc- then they are breaking the law and should be held to account.
Travellers, whether ‘good’ or ‘bad’, must be held to the same standards as the rest of society.
A police force and council that prides itself on equality fails to comprehend that equal treatment means equal punishment for breaking the law and deciding to live on land that is not your own with no mutual consent and no payment.
Travellers should have the right to live their lifestyle and have places to live it, (as again, equality), but also have the responsibility to do so in accordance with the law.
I feel bad for the travellers who do everything in accordance with the law, behaving as functioning members of society.
The ones causing a mess should have to clear it up.
By Oliver Streather-Paul
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