Caravans parked in the car park at the Kingfisher Leisure Centre in Sudbury.

A COUNCIL is treating an encampment of travellers on a public car park as “trespass” but cannot say when or how it intends to get the group to move on.

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The travellers have been on Sudbury’s Babergh District Council-owned Station Road car park for more than two weeks.

Vehicles are usually charged £1.50 per day to park there, and the site is also at the centre of controversial plans to introduce short stay parking fees.

Sudbury councillor John Sayers wrote to Babergh saying it was unfair that the travellers were allowed to park 15 vehicles across more than 30 parking spaces without having to pay.

He said: “In response I received pages and pages of protocol as to how the travellers are to be treated, but there are no indications that they are actively going to implement any charges, because apparently it comes into a different category to parking. This is all very well, but to me, this emphasises the fact that the travellers are being given preferential treatment.”

One of the travellers said they were only on the car park because there were no other short term sites in the district for them to use, adding: “Until the council comes up with some official sites where we can park up for a few days, then we have no alternative but to use public places like this. We have not had any trouble since we have been here and we fully intend to clean up after ourselves before we leave.”

A spokesperson for the council said: “Babergh is working with countywide authorities to do what it can, over a reasonable period of time, following an unauthorised encampment of travellers at Station Road car park, Sudbury.

“This matter is being treated as a trespass on the council’s land and is being dealt with as such, rather than a car park infringement. In accordance with the Suffolk-wide Protocol, a case conference involving Babergh, Suffolk County Council’s Gypsy & Traveller Liaison staff and others has been called for later this week.

“This is the first stage in the process to decide how to best deal with this unauthorised encampment, given the various options open to us.”

But Mr Sayers said he was worried about how long this could take.

He added: “It’s unusual for travellers to park on a public car park and looking at this 38-page document of protocol, it could take months for the council to work this out and actually get them removed. It really is an extraordinary situation.”

The Babergh spokesperson said the council planned to arrange for rubbish that has built up since the encampment began to be collected.