ANGRY councillors and residents met with police in Kirkby Lonsdale to discuss the damage done to their community by travellers and gypsies visiting the Appleby Horse Fair.

Fed-up locals want preventative measures to be put in place to stop visitors arriving early to the fair and running amok in towns en route.

It followed a string of complaints of damage by those staying on the encampment at Devil’s Bridge. These included destruction of property, intimidation of residents and shoplifting.

Speaking at a meeting of Kirkby Lonsdale Town Council, Inspector Paul Latham said at least 59 incidents were reported to police.

“There were a lot of new travellers arriving early this year that we did not know from previous fairs,” he said.

“We are putting the issues in this area down to a group of traveller youths between the age of about 12 and 16 who caused mayhem.

“It was an issue here, then it stopped all of a sudden and similar incidents started in Sedbergh. Then it moved onto Kirkby Stephen. So you can track a certain group of travellers based on the evidence.”

Cllr Allan Muirhead said: “The public do not want arrests. They don’t want these incidents to happen in the first place.

“Having police in the town on patrol does help prevent these incidents. It is a deterrent. If you are preventing incidents rather than detecting them, you are doing good police work.”

Cllr Nick Cotton agreed that foot patrols would help the situation, and made a number of further suggestions that could help prevent crime.

These included CCTV cameras for the duration of the fair, as well as an Appleby Incident Hotline dedicated to reporting incidents and allowing people to circumvent the waiting times commonplace when ringing 101.

Inspector Latham said they would ‘fight’ for more police officers to be available on foot patrols for the fair next year, as well as the potential to issue banning orders for visitors to the town who misbehave and refuse to leave.

Questions were raised as to why police could not simply move travellers on if they arrived at encampments before they were permitted to stop there.

Inspector Latham explained it is down to the landowner to do that, and, if the travellers disobey, it requires a protracted process of acquiring legal orders to evict them. “I am sure the public don’t want to see police in riot gear loading caravans onto low loaders by force,” he said.

Inspector Latham urged members of the public to report any incidents by emailing 101@cumbria.police.uk or ringing 101.