Colchester Council has had to pay its staff to clear up piles of rubbish from an illegal traveller site.

Refuse collectors went to the site yesterday in Napier Road, Colchester, where dozens of travelling families have been camping since last week.

Scores of rubbish bags were collected from outside the site, a car park belonging to developer Taylor Wimpey, which has yet to be officially opened.

Tina Dopson, Colchester councillor responsible for communities asked for the bin bags to be collected after driving past and noticing they had begun to pile up.

She said: “When an unauthorised encampment first begins, we go there and give out health information, such as the location of pharmacies and things like that. We also give them black sacks for their rubbish.

“As you can see, the sacks have been building up outside, so we had them collected.

“Otherwise, much as they would with residents’ rubbish, foxes would get at the bags and before long, it would all be strewn along the road.”

She added: “We will do what we can, with the powers we have, to keep the site as clean as possible. When they leave, we will go down there and clean it up.

“As far as the cost of a bank holiday Monday clean-up is concerned, you also need to look at the cost of our clean-up teams which come out at 4am on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday to clean up the mess in the town from the normal night-time economy. That costs far more.

“As a council, we are used to dealing with this sort of thing but usually these sites are on the outskirts of town. Because this time it is in the town centre, it is much more visible.”

Taylor Wimpy has delivered several portable toilets to the site, in response to complaints from local businesses young children from the site were asking to use their toilets. The company has started court action to get the travellers evicted.