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(v) Caravans
There are five residential Caravan Sites in Romford one being
owned by the Council, and four privately owned. During the year
one privately owned site was closed.
The total number of caravans on the Sites mentioned above is
305. 66 are on the Site owned by the Council, and the privately
owned Sites contain 135, 81, 14 and 9 caravans. The numbers
on two of the privately owned Sites are being decreased, as the
Site licences are for a limited period.
(vi) Gipsies
The present position is little changed, except perhaps that,
because of extended building, the number of available open sites
for the itinerant gipsy are being restricted. When, therefore, these
people are moved, they travel to the next site and on again in
ever lessening circles so that an area is now hardly free of gipsies.
The general public in direct contact with one of these areas are
becoming more vocal in their discontent at the inability of the
Council to permanently free their area of this nuisance.
The Public Health Inspectors have a thankless task being
cursed by the gipsies for not letting them settle, for a few days,
to enable them to earn a living, and also receiving continuous telephone
calls from irate rate-payers for permitting the build-up of
gipsy caravans in the area.
It is very difficult to reconcile the needs of both parties. There
are times when the gipsies are unwell, or the mother arrives in
the area for a confinement, or a member of the family needs hospital
treatment and it is to the Health Inspector that these people
have to turn for sympathetic consideration of their problem.
The time must soon be approaching when serious consideration
should be given to the possibility of setting up a caravan site
to enable these persons on the fringe of our present society to be
settled and drawn into active membership of the Borough, if only
for the benefit of the future generation.
(vii) Prevention of Damage by Pests Act, 1949
It is the duty of every local authority, under the above Act,
to take such steps as may be necessary to secure as far as practicable
that their district is kept free from rats and mice.
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