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A City Councillor has warned the Conservative Council that not providing for Gypsy and Travellers in Milton Keynes; would be a “disastrous” and “naïve” step backwards for the City. Last year MK Council dealt with a total of 34 encampments, and this year have already moved on 32 encampments across the city, on track for a 100% increase. After the Conservatives took control of the Council in May, they unanimously took a decision to halt the project after it originally commenced in February this year when receiving a specific grant from Central Government. Cllr Andy Maric said, “It really frustrates me when I hear Conservative Councillors saying there isn’t a need for a travellers site and we should breach legal contracts to spend the little money left elsewhere, it’s a downright lie and their own data reflects that. Caravans and encampments by the side of our roads used to be a real problem in MK and was one of the things the Lib Dem’s took action on when they used to run the Council; it received a lot of local and cross party support for addressing it up front. The Council has already spent over half a Million pounds on the project, backing out now would breach contracts and potentially break the law as minority groups could place a legal challenge against the Council, all at the expense of the taxpayer. Do we really want to go back to the days when we had rubbish, human excrement and encampments at the side of our grid roads and pretend there isn’t a problem? The Conservatives are taking us backwards in time with this decision to abandon a nearly complete project and its really crucial we stand together to defend our green, excrement and encampment free roadsides and address the issue instead of pretending that there isn’t a problem at all".

Petition summary: "The Conservative Council in Milton Keynes should provide a Travellers site at the already near complete site Fenny Lock and in turn protect our cleaner and green road sides from further rubbish, excrement and encampments. Any deviation from this will take the city a step backwards in time".