Estate Matters S2 Ep7: Andy Squires | You, your land and trespassers

Dealing effectively with trespassers can be a major problem for landowners who are often not equipped, practically or emotionally, with the skills to protect their property from unwanted visitors.

But a specialist business, staffed almost entirely by former police officers, is providing a service to those vulnerable to incursion, from sports pitch owners to car park operators, and caravan parks to rural estates.

Lead Security Consultant with County Investigations, Andy Squires, is the guest on the latest episode of KOR Communications’ Estate Matters podcast. He tells host Anna Byles why it is generally better if landowners don’t try to tackle the trespassers themselves.

Andy, who served for 25 years as a Devon and Cornwall police officer specialising in Neighbourhood Policing, tells Anna that a calm and professional approach is essential when dealing with trespassers – and that can be difficult for the landowners affected.

“We advise them to stay away and not approach the groups at all because it can get quite emotional,” he says. “As a landowner, the group are on their cricket pitch or their car park and it’s affecting their business, and it can get quite escalated. Landowners generally aren’t trained to keep a lid on it and keep things calm.”

Andy, by contrast, says he and the rest of the team at County Investigations, are trained in conflict resolution, looking out for signs that a situation could become difficult and ensuring a quick and effective solution to the problem.

In many cases, however, measures taken by landowners in consultation with County Investigations will prevent trespass from taking place. A subscription scheme called Reassurance provides landowners with clear signage, bearing the County Investigations logo, to place at the entrances to their property.

Andy explains that the signs quickly become associated with the efficient action that will be taken by County Investigations should an incursion take place. “Whenever we get a group removed, they’ll get served with paperwork which has our distinctive yellow logo on it – which is the same logo that is on the signs,” he says.

“Even if the group can’t read the sign – and genuinely some of them can’t read, sadly – they do associate the yellow logo and think: ‘those are the people that moved us on within 48 hours.”

The Reassurance scheme started in early 2021 and has 140 sites from St. Ives to Manchester, displaying 321 signs. In four-and-a-half years of operation, there have been only six incursions and all were groups who weren’t familiar with the signs or their implications.

If groups do move onto a site and the landowner calls County Investigations, in the first stage just two enforcement officers from the company will visit the site and explain they are acting on behalf of the landowner and will take action, under Common Law, to have the group removed. This stage also includes a threat risk and harm assessment and the serving of papers giving the trespassers reasonable notice to move on.

Stage two is a return to site when the time limit is reached, and the trespassers are encouraged to depart that day, which the majority do. If they still refuse, Stage three means a team, including a tow truck, a bailiff and sufficient numbers of enforcement officers, with Police back up, can be called in.

Andy says that in most cases by dealing with the group with dignity and respect alongside the threat of enforcement, groups can usually be persuaded to move on without further action. He says a handshake from the group leader is often enough to seal the arrangement. Understanding the group, allowing them to leave with dignity but in a timely manner, is generally the best way to avoid trouble.

He goes on: “Whenever we move them, we say: ‘Top tip boys – wherever you go next don’t go past one of those signs. They will be prominent on the front entrance, you’ll be able to see them from the road, but you’ll be served paperwork swiftly if you go past one of those signs!’”

Andy accepts that the impact of putting up the signs can simply move trespassers elsewhere but suggests that’s a problem which is virtually impossible to solve. Many of the groups who set up camp want to be close to a large town where they can look for work and like to be in place for a couple of weeks to exhaust all the potential opportunities before moving on.

County Investigations also has subscription schemes available to deal with incursions on caravan parks where some groups will pay for a couple of nights – but then refuse to leave.  Once they have overstayed the time for which they have paid they can be treated as trespassers under Common Law, Andy explains.

He says anyone with a flat piece of land relatively easily accessible and close to a built-up area can be vulnerable.

Good communication between County Investigations staff and the groups they have to deal with is the key to avoiding an escalation of trouble, Andy says. “In 30 years of doing this we’ve never had to actually hitch up a vehicle or put anything on a tow truck,” he said “There’s been the occasional raised voice but certainly no physicality – it’s all been about talking the situation down.”