A BURNLEY businessman was today counting the cost of clearing travellers off his land.

Around 14 caravans moved onto the former athletics club in Bancroft Road - used by Michelin employees before the firm closed down in October 2001 - last Tuesday.

The following day Ross Sheckleton, managing director of Metro Metals (Burnley) Ltd, a sheet metal company based in Stanhope Street, Burnley, that now owns the site, applied to Burnley County Court for an order to evict them.

The order was served on Thursday and the travellers left the site on Thursday night leaving a trail of mess and damage in their wake.

Mr Sheckleton said he is not yet sure what the total cost will be of getting the court order to have them legally removed.

And he is also waiting to find out how much he will have to pay to clean up the site, which was littered with rubbish, and to secure the site and building.

He said: "The legal fees will be £500 at the very minimum, although I haven't received the final bill yet.

"And then I have got all the mess and the filth to tidy up on the site and inside the building.

"It has a fence around it and they had ripped the gates off, so we have had to secure it all again and make sure no one can get a vehicle onto it.

"I am running a business and the last thing I needed was all this aggravation."

Civil engineering work is due to start on the site, which is being developed by Metro Metals, in the next few weeks and planning applications for future work have been submitted to Burnley Council.

The rest of the former Michelin land is owned by the North West Development Agency who have built a technology centre on the site.

The day before the travellers arrived at the Bancroft Road site some had been evicted from the former Airtours site in Helmshore, where they had been for about a month.

Police said they were unable to tell if it was the same group of travellers.