Leading Article: Peace and love in Hampshire

THE DOGS bark and the caravan moves on. In May, thousands of self-styled ravers built an illegal, mile-long shanty town on Castlemorton Common on the slopes of the Malvern Hills. Two weeks ago, convoys of run- down coaches, lorries and cars caused havoc in Powys, mid-Wales. This weekend, thousands of travellers surfaced in Hampshire.

Words such as 'hippy' and 'New Age traveller' have a benign, anachronistic ring about them. For middle-aged parents, they conjure up seductive visions of drifting to the Isle of Wight a quarter of a century ago to see Bob Dylan play, or to Glastonbury on Midsummer's Eve. The images are all of flowers and beads, peace and love, soft drugs and heavy music.

The truth today is more complicated. Although festivals, authorised and unauthorised, still attract the gentle and the green, they also act as a magnet for the violent, the anarchic, the exploitive and the inadequate. 'Crusties' are more common than flower children. The former are a menacing group given to a form of begging that comes close to demanding money with threats. They refuse to wash when offered the opportunity, and are often accompanied by ferocious dogs on frayed lengths of rope.

Yesterday, offices and an incinerator belonging to Hampshire County Council were burnt down, apparently in anarchic protest at attempts by police to keep such travellers from the twin sites of an illegal festival near Romsey. Earlier there had been riotous clashes when the police tried to move vehicles blocking the main road at Ampfield. In Powys, farmers had reported thousands of pounds worth of damage to land, fences and livestock. Such behaviour generates intense resentment, which is not limited to those whose property is harmed and whose rural calm and solitude are undermined. Television pictures of teams of social security staff setting up tables in illegally occupied fields in order to speed the payment of Giro cheques to departing travellers produced widespread anger. The Government was responding to the public mood when regulations were tabled on Friday to stop travellers claiming benefits to which they are not entitled.

In theory, those drawing unemployment pay have to be available for work, and should be able to demonstrate that they are actively seeking jobs. In practice, it has not been easy to enforce these regulations on those who have chosen to drift endlessly around the country, collecting their cheques from different offices each fortnight. Unemployment benefit and income support have come to be seen as unconditional entitlements. They are not. Nicholas Scott, the Social Security Minister, was right to insist that those travellers who abuse the system will in future lose all grants and benefits, unless they are supporting children or a disabled partner.

However, a firm twist to the money tap will not put an end to the problems associated with New Age travellers. This would require making land available on which licensed gatherings could be held. There are two possibilities. The Army might offer parts of Salisbury Plain. Alternatively, farmers with land in profitable set-aside schemes could make fields available. Such a solution would not attract those whose aim is to defy authority. But most would surely welcome an end to confrontation.