Local Government: Councils spending pounds 7m on evictions

Councils in Britain are spending up to pounds 7m a year on evicting travellers, according to new research.

Legal costs for each individual eviction can be as high as pounds 10,000, according to a report on the research, the first of its kind, which has been carried out by the Travellers Research Centre at Cardiff Law School.

A report on the work says that figures are likely to be an underestimate because the councils it looked at had not taken into account all the costs incurred. Nor do the estimates include the costs of police activities. The report points out that at pounds 7m a year, the eviction costs are higher than the cost of providing a network of sites for travellers across the country.