TRAVELLERS will be evicted from the site of a new£19 million historical records centre in the first action of the country’s first Green council.
While the Greens took official control of Brighton and Hove City Council, a group of 25 vans set up an illegal camp in Woollards Field, Falmer.
In an emergency meeting the whole group of 23 councillors decided almost unanimously to evict the group – despite party leader Caroline Lucas stating travellers should be moved on only when there is a suitable alternative site for them.
The council administration said any delay would have risked spending hundreds of thousands of pounds delaying the project to build The Keep. But political rivals stated it was a clear change of principles just hours after taking charge.
The Woollards Field encampment was one of four separate sites that travellers set up in the city in the last two days.
Work on The Keep, the new home for archives and historical resources of Brighton, Hove and East Sussex, is due to begin in the summer. However, before construction starts, ecological teams are moving groups of reptiles and slow worms from the site of special scientific interest to alternative areas to allow them to breed.
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