CALLS have been made for council leaders to hammer out a solution to illegal camps after travellers moved on to land next to a school.

Nine caravans have set up camp near Colbayns High School, in Pathfields Road, Clacton.

Tendring Council began investigating who owned the land – before realising that it did.

The authority has started legal proceedings to evict the travellers.

Spokesman Nigel Brown said: “In the meantime, we have reported the matter to Essex County Council’s traveller liaison officer so they can go to the site and speak to the group about their needs and establish how long they are intending to stay.

“The district council will make a visit to ensure they have sanitary facilities and to make arrangements for dealing with any refuse collection from the site to prevent a public health problem.”

Tendring Council has been bombarded with calls from members of the public.

District councillor Ian Beckett says it is the first time travellers have set up camp in the ward.

He says party leaders need to thrash out a solution to prevent illegal camps springing up.

He said: “What they need to do is get the group leaders from each party to sit down and find a suitable amount of pitches for travellers to live somewhere.

“You can’t just have them turning up on local fields or next to someone’s house.

“They might not be causing any problems, but it’s the fear that they will.”

Mr Beckett said residents were demanding to know what the council was going to do about the latest camp, but there had been no direct complaints about the travellers.

He said: “They are entitled to have somewhere to live and we have to find that for them.

“If we don’t, they will just end up on local fields and it’s causing problems.”