News Shorts & Other Busyness

Traveller Surveillance

Squall 8, Autumn 1994, pg. 9.

Information leaking out from the police’s Operation Snapshot computer surveillance of travellers, has shown Hampshire to have the highest number of traveller sites in the country, whilst Devon and Cornwall have the highest concentration of travellers’ vehicles. Sixty seven per cent of Britain’s new travellers are concentrated in the Southwest.

The extent of information now being held on a national computer bank is evidence of the alarming lengths to which authorities are now going to target harassment of travelling communities.

The following statistics, collated into a police report, have been seen by SQUALL.

Avon and Somerset: 29 sites with 198 vehicles and 87 caravans.

Hampshire: 47 sites with 229 vehicles and 121 caravans.

Dorset: 8 sites with 27 vehicles and 7 caravans.

Devon and Cornwall: 24 sites with 333 vehicles and 89 caravans.

Gloucestershire: 23 sites with 104 vehicles and 52 caravans.

Wiltshire: 11 sites with 43 vehicles and 9 caravans.

Thames Valley: 8 sites with 69 vehicles and 38 caravans.