LOYALISTS last night appeared to be obeying an injunction aimed at stopping the dumping of further material on four bonfire sites on council-owned land in Belfast.
The Irish News visited the four sites, all in the east of the city, yesterday and observed adults, teenagers and children monitoring the bonfires and clearing up any excess material.
None of the four bonfires were unoccupied and all had clear space in front of the pyres.
A clean-up operation was underway at Ravenscroft Avenue car park, yards from the infamous Chobham Street bonfire of previous years, which saw families evacuated from their homes and properties boarded up at a cost of more than £10,000 to the taxpayer in 2015.
A handwritten sign warning 'no more dumping' had been erected at the entrance to the car park as a crowd of mainly teenagers brushed up wood and debris, which was placed in bins, and monitored cars arriving at the bonfire site.
This newspaper continues to be the target of abuse at the Ravenscroft Avenue bonfire, with a wooden sign on top of the pyre stating "F**k The Irish News".
At Inverary Playing Fields, close to Belfast City Airport, there were just a handful of people around the wooden pallets, which was stacked neatly into rows and with little evidence of any material dumped in front of the site.
A group of teenage males had gathered at the bonfire site in a section of the car park at Avoniel Leisure Centre, as people came and went as normal from the council-owned facility.
In keeping with the other nearby pyres, the land in front of the bonfire was comparatively tidy and with no fresh material.
Signs on the bonfire at the leisure centre directed insults at both the BBC and Belfast City Council.
A little more than two miles away, a woman and a boy guarded the bonfire site at Cregagh Park East, which also sported signs warning people not to dump.
The vast majority of the material on the bonfire had been fenced off, with some pieces of wood and furniture sitting loose on the grass.
Granted on Thursday and made public on Friday evening, the Belfast City Council injunction follows concerns about the size of the bonfires and the fact that the council has been using public money to store pallets for loyalists.
However, material which was already on the land at the time of the injunction will not be removed, despite Sinn Féin calling for the sites to be completely cleared.
The injunction states that anyone attempting to enter the areas "for the purposes of directing, building, organising and/or constructing bonfires and/or providing materials for use on a bonfire" is prohibited from doing so.
The PSNI did not state whether it would be intervening in the event of the injunction being breached, which carries the potential for being found in contempt of court and being sent to jail or having assets seized.
Superintendent Robert Murdie said on Friday: "We have now written to the council with regard to the details of the injunction - and so it would be inappropriate to comment further ahead of their response".
