SEDBERGH area residents have disputed suggestions that a clampdown on Appleby Horse Fair gipsies and travellers is over the top.

As South Lakeland prepares to open its roads to fairgoers on Monday, Cautley Residents’ Action Group (CRAG) revealed a catalogue of complaints from last year which it said ‘justified’ the tougher measures now being taken by Cumbria Police and local authority officials.

The measures include more robust policing and tighter restrictions on where fairgoers can camp as they wait for permission to cross into Eden.

CRAG said the new approach was needed after more than 80 incidents were logged from around 20 Cautley households in the run-up to last year’s fair.

The detailed list of incidents includes: * damage to hedges and gates
* trespassing with horses in fields and gardens
* intimidation and abuse
* drunken behaviour
* drug dealing
* dangerous ‘sulky’ racing on the highway
* thefts and attempted thefts
* human excrement and rubbish left in fields.

CRAG member John Challoner said: “These incidents are probably not widely known among the general public or the travellers themselves.

"We have released them to explain why what some people regard as draconian measures are really needed.”

The residents’ response follows complaints from gipsies and travellers that tougher policing and tight restrictions on where they can camp in South Lakeland amounts to ethnic discrimination.

Save Appleby Horse Fair, a Facebook site set up by fairgoers, has received a number of postings condemning the official crackdown.

Meanwhile, police and council officials have revealed on the official Appleby Fair website that the stopping restrictions do not apply to traditional horse-drawn gipsy caravans – ‘providing they are respectful of the settled community’.

Other caravans and vehicles such as horseboxes and pick-up trucks will have to park in designated areas.

A Sedbergh farmer is allowing his field – Scrogg Bank – to be used by travellers free of charge.

Bill Lloyd, a traveller representative on the Appleby Horse Fair Multi Agency Co-ordinating Group, said: “The public agencies have worked very hard over the past three years to solve some of these problems, and I believe that they now demonstrate more respect for the gipsy-traveller community than for many years.

“The provision of toilets, rubbish skips and a four acre field full of grass next to the Sedbergh verges has never happened before, and it is something I would not have believed possible only a few years ago.

"I think it is a positive move, and I hope it works.”

l DRIVERS are being urged to take care on the A66 in the run up to next month’s Appleby Horse Fair.

Steve Bishop, of the Highways Agency, said: “Despite the use of special warning signs and speed enforcement, since June 2003 there have been two fatal and one serious injury collisions involving horse drawn caravans on the A66 travelling to and from the fair.”