Travellers condemn city site as 'junk-filled and dirty'
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MEMBERS of a large extended family living in caravans in the city's Longman Park for Gypsies and Travellers are calling for a mass clear-up of the site.
The Stewarts, who say they predominantly occupy the 19-pitch site previously used as a landfill site up to 1965, are complaining that ever-growing mounds of debris and industrial waste make it a dirty and unpleasant place to be.
However, Highland Council insist the junk was fly-tipped, adding: "We will clean up instances of fly-tipping where we can."
We visited the site after a new report showed only two sites out of 26 – Angus and Falkirk – met all minimum Scottish Government standards.
Seven areas: essential fabric standards, energy efficiency, facilities and amenities, safety and security, maintenance and repairs, fair treatment and consultation were covered.
Highland Council met the vast majority of requirements including safety and security.
But it failed two of seven indicators under essential fabric standards.
This related to the size and quality of hardstanding areas where caravans are pitched, and the quality and maintenance of roads and paths.
It also failed one indicator – relating to entrance road drainage – under the maintenance and repairs category.
Our visit this week sparked a flurry of interest with families coming out of their caravans.
They thought it was a government inspection and quickly lost interest when they realised it was for a news article.
"No point in putting it in the papers, no-one cares," said a man in his early twenties.
A mother-of-three, who wants to move into her own council house, was eager to know when the story would be published so that she could show it to the housing officer.
A woman whose five-week-old granddaughter stays on the site pointed to overgrown embankments stuffed with junk including ladders, wooden pallets, rusty bikes, electrical goods, balls of wire and bits of engine.
"The council should get all that to the dump and cut the overgrowth back to give the pitches more space," she said.
"They charge more for a week on this site than I pay for my council house."
A man in his 40s, who also did not want to be named, said the caravan pitches were too small. "It's unhealthy here and it's rat-infested," he added.
"You should come over here on a gloomy night and you'll see them all running around. I keep dogs to get rid of them. They charge more than £100 per week to live in this dump. But there's nowhere else we can go."
Concerns were also raised about contamination from the site which is located on a former landfill site believed to have been used between 1919 and 1965.
The council said consultants advised in 2010 that although some landfill sites can contain substances which are harmful to human health, there was no unacceptable risk from landfill gases on that site.
A woman who previously camped on an unauthorised site said the Inverness site's kitchen, shower and toilet blocks made life easier.
A Highland Council spokeswoman said: "We intend to carry out a formal consultation with residents later in the summer to identify any additional site facilities such as a play park and to discuss programming of new works such as improving the hard standing areas, which cannot be done without moving tenants to other bays which needs consultation with them."
