A group of locals in a leafy Surrey village are threatening to form a ‘posse’ to take on a group of 200 travellers who have stolen boules and lawn tennis sets and defecated in their manicured gardens.
The travellers moved into Cobham last Sunday night and have turned the picturesque village into ‘the Wild West’ with children stealing openly from shops and acting ‘as if they own the place’, locals have said.
MailOnline photographed police officers scooping human faeces off the tennis courts amid claims that this was the extent of their efforts to confront them.
Alistair Mann, 57, left, and David Worsfold, 59, right, are demanding that police take action
Two police officers clean human faeces off the Cobham tennis courts this week
Some of the 50 caravans in which travellers have descended on the leafy Surrey village
A path in Painshill Path, Cobham, close to the site where travellers have descended in numbers
The caravans have been parked on the recreation ground and locals are now afraid to use it
Rubbish is overflowing the nearby bins as the travellers leave their refuse all over the village
The village boasts an average property price of £1.1million and is home to celebrities including Andy Murray, actor Antonio Banderas, footballer John Terry and singer Louise Redknapp.
The arrival of 50 caravans on the local recreation ground a week ago on Sunday marks the tenth time this year that travellers have descended on Cobham.
Now business owners have invested in a set of walkie talkies to coordinate running confrontations with the travellers on the high street as police seem unable to respond.
Father-of-three David Worsfold, 59, whose family has owned Farrants, the local newsagent, since 1954, said:
‘If the police aren’t going to police them, we will. I pay £63,000 a year in business rates and what do I have to show for it? When I call the police they don’t care.’
On Wednesday he and some other villagers chased a gang of traveller thieves into a Sainsbury’s car park and ‘kettled’ them in, he said.
‘They were holding all this stolen property and caught red-handed. I flagged down a police car and told the officer what had happened and he just drove off.’
The gang escaped by climbing over the wall, he added.
Alistair Mann, 57, the chairman of the local Chambers of Commerce, has also had a number of altercations with the travellers.
‘The problem is that the police don’t get rid of them so they keep coming back,’ he said. ‘Cobham is seen as a soft touch. The traffic wardens don’t even issue them tickets.
‘Locals are already starting to take matters into their own hands. There has been lots of repeated talk about getting a possé together.’
Mr Mann intends to refuse to pay any further parking tickets until traffic wardens treat the travellers like everybody else, he said. ‘You’re looking at civil unrest,’ he said.
Last night a terrified elderly lady called 999 after seeing a group of travellers trying to set fire to the hedges outside her house. ‘The police said they’d send a panda car but they never did,’ Mr Mann said.
A view form nearby leafy Cobham where locals are protesting against the influx of travellers
A police car was parked near the travellers but no action appeared to be taken to move them
Gas barbecues were set up beside the travellers’ caravans where they held outdoor parties
Laundry has been hung all over the park benches meaning that residents cannot use them
Chief among the residents’ concerns is the unsanitary conditions that the travellers leave in their wake.
On a residents’ Facebook page, one mother posted: ‘They trying to break in to all our garages along the backs of our cottages at 2am this morning.
‘Carrying my 13-month-old son through our back garden after breakfast I found HUMAN POO – STINKING PILES OF HUMAN POO – HEAPS OF IT WITH ROLLS AND ROLLS OF SOILED TOILET PAPER COVERED IN MORE POO all along the backs of our garden gates.’
According to villagers, the travellers have repeatedly used the children’s playground sandpit as a lavatory, causing it to be closed for eight weeks on a previous occasion while it was cleaned and sanitised.
They have caused commotions in the local branch of Costa Coffee, disturbing residents as they ordered their chai lattes.
Businesses have been forced to close at lunchtime in the face of feral gangs of children who stole a set or rubber masks from a shop and have used them to disguise their identities as they go on stealing sprees.
This, said Nathalie Webb of the Chamber of Commerce, is damaging the local economy. ‘People have had enough,’ she said. ‘We will shortly be looking at vigilante action.’
Locals say that the favoured method used by the travellers is ‘hit and run’.
‘Yesterday there was a four-year-old in the street shouting ‘nick something for me, nick something for me’, as his brothers stole from the shops,’ Mr Mann said.
‘One lad even tried to run out of the Robert Dyas hardware shop with an electric drill.’
Travellers have allegedly stolen three kitchen knives from a local boutique kitchenware shop, harassed charity workers and tried to steal collection boxes.
Losses to businesses from stealing alone are thought to run into the thousands with further money lost through the loss of footfall as the centre of the village gradually becomes a no-go zone.
‘Many of the local families have been here for centuries,’ said Mr Worsfold. ‘I was born above the shop that I run and my father started working there in 1934.
‘There’s no way we are going to allow these travellers to win.’
The travellers reportedly smashed their way into the recreation ground by driving into the gate
Residents have been horrified by the travellers stealing their boules kits and lawn tennis sets
The travellers are living in full view of £1million houses backing onto the village green
