Unauthorised traveller site set up at Brentwood leisure centre

Eight traveller caravans have been set up in a field at the Brentwood Centre.

Staff at the Doddinghurst Road leisure centre alerted police to the appearance of the camp in an outer field at around 2.30pm on Monday (June 27).

Brentwood Borough Council has given the travellers until noon on Thursday (June 30) to move out of the field or face being removed.

Cllr Roger McCheyne, chair of the planning, development control and licensing committee, said: “We have visited the site with the police and have jointly assessed the situation. At the council’s request the police have issued a direction under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 which requires the travellers to leave the land by 12.00pm on Thursday 30th June.

“If the group has not moved by this time there is power to remove the vehicles from the land.

“Residents can be assured that the council will always respond to allegations of serious breaches of planning control such as gipsy and traveller incursions and that such activity is taken very seriously.”

A spokesman for the Brentwood Centre said: “We’re running the centre as normal and nothing is being disrupted.”