PROBLEMS caused after travellers suddenly appear on patches of land across East Lancashire are hardly a new phenomenon.

For many years the scenario has been the same.

A group of travellers appear and local residents, businesses and land owners immediately bombard the local authority with complaints.

Council officials then run around and expensive legal moves are made before the travellers move out, usually at the eleventh hour, leaving an area which urgently needs a clean up.

The travellers themselves say they often have to stop without permission simply because they have nowhere else to go.

The law passed in 1968 compelling local authorities to provide sites for travellers was repealed in 1994 and since then the number of official sites has dwindled.

Now following a recent escalation of problems Hyndburn Council has drawn up a strategy which includes a code of conduct for travellers detailing how they are expected to behave.

Their action is to be welcomed and other councils should follow suit.

But sufficient places on official sites also need to be made available if the "problem" is to be solved.

Merely forcing people over local authority boundaries to get rid of them is no answer.