Joe Brightman of Ellisons’ property litigation team recently and successfully aided a local company in removing a group of travellers from its retail park.

Joe was contacted by the client explaining that over the course of the previous night six vans and other caravans had moved on to a service yard to the rear of a number of the retail premises.

This was naturally causing some disruption and concern to the commercial tenants who occupied the units. The client had spoken to the travellers who intended on staying on the site for several days; they had refused to vacate when asked to do so.

Joe instructed bailiffs immediately and officers attended the same day to serve notice on the travellers requiring them to vacate. If they failed to do so, the bailiffs would return to carry out an eviction. Fortunately, that final stage was not needed, as the travellers left the site shortly after 10pm that same evening, approximately 24 hours after first moving on to the site.

Due to concerns over the open nature of the site, and whether the travellers would return, Joe arranged security to prevent the situation recurring.

Naturally, the client was delighted to have recovered possession of the land within such a short period of time. One particular occupier of a retail unit was extremely pleased with the process and result and explained that “it was the fastest any of our sites had been cleared”. They added they were always pleased with the speed and efficiency with which Ellisons dealt with all of their matters and were glad to have found that the case with this instruction, given the problems that could have developed had the situation not been resolved so swiftly.