Gipsies move onto Newport’s vacant Megabowl site

9:10am Friday 22nd June 2012 in Gwent news Photograph of the Author By Natalie Crockett

GIPSIES have moved onto Newport’s vacant Megabowl site.

Landowners Johnsey Estates said the group, living in five caravans, set up the camp in its car park on June 1 and do not have permission to be there.

The firm says they have asked the group, who appear to have barricaded themselves into the site with rubble and road signs, to move on every day since they moved in and have also requested help from Gwent Police.

A spokeswoman for Johnsey Estates claimed the men, women and children living there had been using the surrounding area as a toilet and the council’s environmental health team had been informed.

She added the firm was in the process of obtaining a court order to get the group removed from the site, next to the Peugeot car dealership.

The derelict bowling alley has been empty since 2005 and several schemes to bring it back into use have so far failed to get off the ground.

Earlier plans by the developer aiming to turn it into a supermarket were ditched last year in favour of creating a retail centre called Mega Centre, expected to bring around 400 jobs, but it has yet to get started.

When asked if the Gipsy’s presence on the site was threatening any future plan Johnsey Estates said: "Not at present."

Newport does not currently have designated Gipsy and traveller sites, but plans are being drawn up for up to five sites in Lliswerry, Marshfield and Bettws.

In March we reported how the Welsh Government allowed Gipsies to move to an unauthorised site on Tatton Road in a bid to house people from the Gipsy and traveller community in the absence of authorised sites.

Comments(12)

Owain Vaughan says...
9:30am Fri 22 Jun 12

No, not rip it down - find another (non-retail) use.

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james jackson says...
10:16am Fri 22 Jun 12

Creating a Mega centre eh?
If this goes ahead, ever. then we can wave goodbye to the redevelopment of the city centre.
There are too many retail units and supermarkets in Newport, with fewer people with money to spend. Newport Council needs to get on with a permanent site for gypsies and travellers, as required by Welsh government.

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RENNIE2012 says...
12:43am Sun 24 Jun 12

obviously all active travellers needs somewhere to stop & rest & they are doing no harm where they are. now it would be nice if each borough changed their attitudes to travellers & in turn set up some legal sites for them & until they do so then each borough could easily provide portable toilets & a skip to which will not only ensure that travellers doesnt have to use the open space around their caravans as a toilet but the travellers will be happy to use a skip for their rubbish if its provided rather than leaving a mess behind when they go. at the end of the day. many councils are hostile towards travellers & they just want travellers moved on asap but this attitude needs to change

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lord iron of shumg says...
10:54am Sun 24 Jun 12

If i won the lottery I'd turn it back to what it was before and add funky stuff to it !!!

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Euwan Usami says...
4:57pm Sun 24 Jun 12

It's difficult for people change their attitude toward travellers because there is just too much negative baggage that comes with them. I have already noticed that the old mega bowl centre appears to have one of the doors forced open. Coincidence? I would agree that there should be facilities around the UK for them but I think they should pay for the right to use them and all other sites should then be off limits.

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Dai37 says...
9:53am Mon 25 Jun 12

Nice and sensible as long as it is not near you.
I think there could be an "adopt a traveller" initiative, for those generous souls to help this poor beleaguered community out.
Plenty of room in their gardens, forthe scrap and hedge cuttings, and allowing them access to the toilets and bathrooms would be so welcome.
I am sure we would be inundated with requests, perhaps the two generous posters would send there emails out and get us off to a good start.

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SASHA.P says...
4:44pm Mon 25 Jun 12

You always call them Gypsies they are travellors not gypsies I am a decendant of a romany gypsy and would be ashamed to be labelled as these are breaking into things and stealing going to the toilet and littering the sites they are on I come from a clean respectable family who settled two generations ago and bought a house and work **** hard to keep it,I can understand there are more and more of them these days and agree they need somewhere just as much as anybody else does to live but there is no need to be fouling up the port ,its bad enough as it is without them leaving their mess behind surely with all those tipper transits between them they can arrange a regular dump at the tip or summit even if they have to pay ,yes pay like everyone else has to!But I do think they should have somewhere to go and then they would not have to turn up at the sites they do like by the transporter bridge and up the industrial by spytty and the megabowl site.Please dont make Newport worse than it already is ,its not much to ask really is it?

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arvinda strop says...
10:08pm Mon 25 Jun 12

tinkers one and all leave your garage door open and see what happens when the little blue and white pick up comes round

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chris227 says...
4:25pm Wed 27 Jun 12

they cannot be very fussey coming to newport

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gordelpus says...
7:51pm Wed 27 Jun 12

I've had a shedfull of this now. I've had the stone tiles raked of a barn roof by them - £1500 worth of damage. My neighbours farm stuff (metal)and red diesel robbed - £3500 worth. Mess, theft, and the vulnerable elderly exploited without a second thought. Paracites.

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chris227 says...
8:45am Thu 28 Jun 12

just tell gwent police im sure they will spring into action lol

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ianzemma says...
10:25am Thu 28 Jun 12

These gypsies have left human waste all over the ground, their kids have used marker pens on the cars on the lookers compound, windscreens have been damaged, customers hit by kids wandering around swinging ropes..and to top it all THE POLICE TOLD THEM TO GO THERE! Lokkers have lost customers because people aren't stopping because of them, one even stodd in human waste. they're disgusting.

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