LOCALS of a leafy suburb are furious at brazen travellers “drifting cars” across football pitches before leaving behind a trail of scorch marks and litter.
Like clockwork, plague celebrity hotspot Muswell Hill in North London once a year – home to the likes of and .
Residents told us last Thursday, travellers illegally pitched 12 at Muswell Hill playing fields – a stone’s throw from worth millions.
When The Sun visited, the travellers had scrambled and left in their wake a litany of rubbish, skid marks from late-night “donuts” and a slew of furious locals.
Karl, a resident of four years, told us the local Sunday league match had to be cancelled due to the state of the field.
He said: “It’s a yearly event. Why don’t the council have eviction notices in the drawer ready to go – it’s just a mess.
“It’s a thousand pound penalty for making a fire pit here. I walk the dog every day and I saw like a five, and a burned mattress. Did they have any penalties?
“The most annoying thing for me is to imagine me getting a car here and skidding in the field. How many minutes would it take to arrest me?
“They’ve just been here driving through the field honking and skidding across all weekend and nothing is happening. It’s hypocrisy.”
Lenny has lived in Muswell Hill for 20 years, and told The Sun he thinks the travellers should “obey the same as anyone else”.
“I mean if I go out here now in my car, drive down the road and a camera spots me and I’m going more than 20 miles an hour, I’m breaking the law.
“These guys can come over here and virtually all night long drive backwards and forwards in the dark at 30, 40, sometimes 50 miles an hour doing wheel spins, digging up all the grass and just basically making it impossible to go out after dark.
“If you were to step out in front of them you’d have no chance. And rightly or wrongly the impression that I’ve got is if they ran you over and did you a serious kind of life changing, i.e. killed you, they wouldn’t stop.
“They’d just carry on,” he said.
A local who did not wish to give his name for fear of reprisal said: “It’s quite an intimidating group to approach and deal with.”
“My son was using the skate park, and when they were down there, he actually had his phone taken off him by a guy with a knife.
“He was about 13. He was 13 or 14. It was just when he was first into skateboarding.
“The guy sort of intimidated them and showed them the knife he had, and that was enough. They gave it over.”
Diana, a 41-year-old dog walker, said: “We look after the field very much. We’re always picking up after the , etc.
“There is just a ton of rubbish and nappies lying around. It’s a big mess. I don’t know what the council is going to do about it and the .
“I saw a few people yesterday driving super fast across the field just to go and dump the rubbish in the woods.”
Nicola, 50, who frequently walks around the park said she’d been avoiding the area since she heard the travellers had returned.
She told us: “There’s only one entrance they can come in and out of. Why can’t they (the council) do something better with that to stop it happening?
“They’ve set a fire and it’s all metal now. So of course the dogs go bounding in not knowing what it is. They’ve obviously burnt a mattress or something.
“It’s horrific up there. And there’s a big patch where they’ve had a big fire. So you’re quickly trying to get the dogs away.”
Diana added that if the council don’t clean it up, she and the local community will, “so the dogs and the children are safe”.
A Haringey Council spokesperson said: “We are aware of residents’ concerns regarding the unauthorised encampment at the site.
“The encampment has now left the area, and council officers have inspected the location.
“We are working to ensure the site is cleared and returned to normal use as quickly as possible.”
A spokesperson said: “At about 20:00hrs on Thursday, October 15, police were notified that vehicles had gained access to Coldfall Wood, Muswell Hill.
“Officers attended and engaged with persons at the site. No offences were disclosed and no arrests were made.
“Police are in contact with the local authority.”
