According to the Daily Mail, traveller Martin Mongan advertised plots for sale on the field before construction began without planning permission. The company owning the land, UK Real Estate and Land 2 Limited, paid £125,000 cash for it on April 29, 2025, according to the Daily Mail. One of its directors, Chad Brady, was convicted of cocaine dealing in 2024 and received a suspended sentence, the Daily Mail reported.
The field is a wildlife haven hosting protected great crested newts and rare albino fallow deer, according to multiple reports. The council issued a stop notice, but BBC News reported that work continued beyond the deadline. A council spokesperson said: "We are aware of reports that activity has continued on the site.
This is why we have got to take action to make sure that building work like this, taking place outside office hours, clearly seeking to game the system, that we are able to take decisive and quick action. Because the local community here knows that this is going to be disruptive to them, and anyone who has tried to get a builder to start work after hours on a Friday on a bank holiday weekend will know that there's something not right about this.
" The landowner has stopped construction and wishes to comply with the notice, BBC News reported. " Similar illegal traveller sites have appeared across England. A second site emerged in Hoath, Canterbury, Kent, over the same weekend, and Canterbury City Council issued a stop notice.
In Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, travellers set up two camps, one near the police station and another at Ford's Fields. Warwick District Council served a Notice of Direction requiring occupants to leave by April 30. In Birmingham, travellers set up an illegal camp at Sheldon Country Park ahead of Easter, and the city council served notice to leave.
It's dreadful - there's no privacy now at all because they have removed all of the trees, all of the ancient hedgerows that were there before.
In Cornwall, residents in Luney Barton claim 60 static caravans were installed in the wrong location at Meadow Lakes Holiday Park, breaching planning rules. Cornwall Council and the holiday park dispute the claim. " In East Sussex, a planning row has erupted over an 'illegal swingers' campsite' named Turn a Blind Eye in Whatlington, according to Whatlington Parish Council.
We are not adverse to tourism at all - Cornwall needs tourism and it's a good thing - but the planning consent must be applied you can't just allow any static owners to do exactly what they want and the council don't seem to want to do anything about it.
Those responsible are gaming the system and exploiting gaps in enforcement during out-of-hours periods when councils are closed.