Racial discrimination of Travellers on online news

I'm a local Councillor on Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council on Merseyside and have lodged a complaint with Merseyside Police SIGMA unit following extremely offensive & racist comments on social media 'On The Spot News Southport' following an encampment of Travellers in Southport. The comments by some posters to the news article 'mass brawl at caravan site' is now being treated as a hate crime.

Outside of my elected member role IM a member of the equalities team at Sefton CVS and work with BME/Migrant families in the borough of Sefton and recently gave a presentation to over 100 GP staff on Traveller health & wellbeing in an effort to remove barriers to services and I was astounded by the personal prejudices of some attendees who are the gatekeepers to GP practices and I subsequently made my concerns known to the NHS CCG commissioning team as it was evident that some attendees need to revisit not only Equality & Diversity training but Cultural Competency training and this is now being looked at.

What I found most worrying was the fact that people found it acceptable to openly express opinions in such a public arena and the impact on those deeply entrenched beliefs could have on travellers accessing services and what sadly is still the last bastion of acceptable racism.

Kind regards Cllr Robert Brennan Sefton Council