Migrants' illegal caravan village must leave farm

MIGRANT workers will be removed from a caravan village at an East Yorkshire farm, now enforcement action has been approved.

About 150 people have been living in 31 caravans at the site in Huggate, near Driffield.

Neither the caravans or a number of large poly-tunnels at the farm have planning permission.

It has emerged East Riding Council's planning enforcement team is expected to serve a formal notice on the farm, requiring the caravans and the tunnels to the removed from the site.

The council investigation follows a joint site visit carried out by planning officers and representatives from the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA).

After the visit, the site owner surrendered his gangmasters licence.

Details of the case were revealed at a meeting of the council's safer and stronger communities scrutiny committee.

Peter Jackson, the council's private sector housing manager, said migrant worker accommodation issues remained a concern.

He said recent legal action taken against private landlords in Goole underlined the council's determination to tackle problems of migrant workers being housed in over-crowded conditions.

During the crackdown in the town, housing officers seized 50 passports being stored in one property and discovered an illegal cannabis factory in another.

Mr Jackson said: "We have undertaken joint investigations with the GLA, but together we can do more.

"The GLA is keen to work more closely with us because two of their most successful recent operations have been in the East Riding."

Just before Christmas about 30 migrant workers from eastern Europe were forced to start sleeping in tents in Goole after losing both their jobs and, as a result, their accommodation.

Mr Jackson said a dozen were still sleeping rough, some in houses earmarked for demolition, which had no electricity or running water.

Graham Cross, the GLA's regional compliance officer, said the agency was keen to formalise its joint working with the council through a memorandum of understanding.

He said: "We are an intelligence-led organisation and rely on people coming to us with information.

"Not all employers take advantage of migrant workers, but others exploit the situation.

"I have seen migrant workers break down in tears during interviews because they don't know where they are going to be working from one day to another, they don't know when they are going to get paid and they don't know how they might ever go home."