The county's police deployed special police powers three times in a single day this week as the number of unauthorised traveller encampments across the county continues to climb.
More than 50 caravans were moved on from sites on Wednesday after officers invoked section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.
The order lets police direct trespassers to leave land and subsequently seize vehicles if they refuse.
A group of 27 caravans that had arrived in Great Yarmouth was moved on, along with a splinter group that had broken away to Morrisons Riverside in Norwich, and a separate camp of 25 caravans at Mousehold Heath.
A camp of travellers in Great Yarmouth earlier this week (Image: Facebook/ Kay Denison)
It comes as the county continues to battle a surging number of camps as the summer draws to a close.
Travellers have also pitched up in several other locations including Earlham, Wymondham and Lowestoft, prompting calls from local councils for more police assistance in dealing with them.
In Earlham, contractors packing up last weekend's Rock and Roll Circus Festival told this newspaper that individuals had “threatened to tear down security barriers and steal a caravan”.
The Joseph Conrad pub, in Station Square, Lowestoft, had to shut early for health and safety reasons following the disorder (Image: Newsquest)
In Lowestoft, a Wetherspoons was forced to close early following a series of incidents linked to travellers.
There have also been similar issues south of the border in Suffolk.
In response to the encampments, Colin Sutton, Norfolk’s Reform police and crime commissioner, said he had pushed the force's deputy chief constable to use its special powers "where possible".
He also confirmed the run of interventions this week.
Colin Sutton has encouraged the use of special powers (Image: Reform)
“We are making a difference - policing done in the way the residents told me they wanted it to be,” he said.
Dealing with unauthorised encampments is rarely straightforward for the authorities.
Trespass on private or council land is a civil matter, not a criminal one, meaning police powers under section 61 only kick in once conditions are met - such as damage being caused, abusive behaviour, or six or more vehicles present.
Below that threshold, it falls to the landowner - often the local council - to pursue their own eviction through the civil courts, a process that can take days or weeks and leaves authorities picking up the legal costs and the clean-up bill.
That gap is understood to be a growing source of frustration for councils in the area, who can find themselves powerless to act quickly and are left to manage encampments, and their aftermath, largely at their own expense.
The mess left at Dereham's recreational ground last year (Image: DTC)
Tony Needham, the clerk of Dereham Town Council, said an encampment last year cost the authority £5,000.
He added: "When we had travellers occupy its land it became apparent from talking to the enforcement officers that many of the travellers are here on ‘holiday’ then move from location to location, stay for a while until they get moved off.
"The enforcement officers also said that in some police areas they tend not to go because the police are very firm with them."
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