Daily Mail
June 15, 2014
It is one of the capital’s most beautiful parks, enjoyed by thousands who visit each day to stroll through 200 acres of landscaped gardens.
But Gunnersbury Park in West London has been ‘desecrated and despoiled’ by travellers who left 50 tons of rubbish and filth after illegally camping there for just three days.
The once perfectly manicured lawns have been churned up by cars, the turf of a cricket pitch destroyed and a picturesque bluebell wood transformed into a hazardous swamp of refuse – all at a cost to the taxpayer of tens of thousands of pounds.
Piles of waste, including a piano, sofas, mattresses, prams, lawn mowers, dirty nappies, toys and vast amounts of building rubble, have been left without any care or consideration.
A local school sports day was cancelled, along with a weekend charity run, because of health and safety fears.
Police said the travellers had come to London after attending Appleby Horse Fair in the Lake District, Europe’s largest gathering of the travelling community, where piles of rubbish were also left strewn in their wake.
They are expecting more to arrive and migrate from park to park around southern England.
Around 70 men, women and children in 17 caravans turned up at Grade II-listed Gunnersbury Park, the former Georgian stately home of 19th century financier Nathan Rothschild, on Sunday evening.
Then, with wilful abandon, they proceeded to destroy the much-loved grounds and terrorise park-users.
Hounslow Council, which estimates the clean-up bill will exceed £18,000, applied to the courts for an eviction notice. Meanwhile, police received reports of travellers – armed with guns – trying to run over walkers in their cars and threatening to kill their dogs.
So worrying did the situation become that, as a last resort, the park was closed on Wednesday evening.
But within a few hours the group moved to a nearby park, where they have set up camp again. Gunnersbury has now been tentatively re-opened.