A north-east councillor has called for travellers who leave a mess in their wake to be tracked down and billed for the clear-up.
Chairman of Aberdeenshire Council’s gypsy-traveller sub-committee, Allan Hendry, said the local authority should be tracking down any groups that fail to clear up unauthorised encampments after they move on.
He made the call as councillors agreed to create a special taskforce to deal with the region’s most “problematic” travellers camps.
The sub-committee last week agreed to set up a multi-agency emergency management team following issues at two sites in Aberdeenshire.
It was prompted after a mess branded “disgraceful” was left when travellers left an unauthorised camp overlooking Fetteresso Cemetery, near Stonehaven, last month.
Similar issues were reported at a site in Maryculter earlier in the year, which led to “frictions” between the residents of the camp and locals.
SNP councillor for Mid-Formartine Mr Hendry pointed to encampments at Balmedie Country Park earlier in 2016 as he called for the “clear up cost” left behind by an encampment to be paid for by “the people responsible”.
He added: “I have been to some that are cleaner after than when they (the travellers) arrived. It is not across the piste.
“Under these circumstances I would expect some sort of inquiry to be made and to bill them for it. If we could maybe do something about that, that would be useful. I know it is difficult.”
He added if the council did “nothing at all” when a mess is left behind, it may send out the wrong message.
The council’s gypsy-traveller liaison officer, Jennifer Macrae, said: “I would say a lot of the encampments have not left a mess.
Quite few of the encampments have been quite tidy.”
The new taskforce will bring together the council’s environmental health, housing, waste services and trading standards departments with those from housing associations, and the police and fire and rescue service.
A meeting of the team would be assembled when a group has “persistently breached” the council’s code of conduct for gypsy-travellers sites.
Last week, the sub-committee also decided the council should operate the proposed Aikey Brae stopover site, near Old Deer.