Councillors in Aberdeen yesterday voted to progress plans for a bylaw to prohibit gypsy-travellers from camping overnight on public sites around the city.
The Labour-led administration also instructed chief executive Valerie Watts to write to Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland asking him to look again at guidelines issued to procurators fiscal in relation to illegal encampments.
At present, there is a presumption against prosecution of gypsy-travellers, who are classed as an ethnic minority group.
Figures provided by the local authority show there were 81 unauthorised encampments in the city last year – 38 on private land and 43 on council-owned land.
Police have said officers would remain “powerless” to move on unauthorised groups, even if the proposal for new legislation was backed by the Scottish Government.
However, newly-appointed council leader Jenny Laing insisted that a dual approach of a by law backed up by new halting sites was the best solution.
She said: “The level of travellers coming into the city is unprecedented to anything we have seen before, both in terms of the impact and the costs that are incurred in deal-ing with these encampments.”
The opposition SNP group put forward an amendment calling for the bylaw plan to be abandoned, and instead for efforts to be concentrated on establishing more short-term halting sites.
Nationalist councillor Gordon Townson argued that additional local legislation would “discriminate” against gypsy-travellers.
The SNP said police would be more effective in moving on unauthorised camps if there was somewhere to move them to. An existing travellers site at Clinterty is already oversubscribed.
During a lengthy debate, Labour housing and environment convener Neil Cooney said the problem had escalated to the point at which there were now “mobile construction firms” operating in the city.
He denied the council was seeking to discriminate, adding: “I will be a good neighbour to anyone who is a good neighbour to me. It is reciprocal.”
Under the terms of the bylaw drafted by city council officers, it would be an offence to stop in designated areas such as public parks between 6pm and 6am – with fines of up to £500.
Councillors voted by 28 to 12 to approve the Labour motion, which will now be sent to the Scottish Government to seek ministerial approval.
A council report revealed more than £70,000 has been spent moving travellers and cleaning up after problem encampments in the past year.