A WAGON trail of travellers have set up camp at the rear of Salt Ayre sports centre.

More than 30 caravans formed a circle on sports pitches at the rear of the centre causing weekend football matches to be cancelled.

Local residents claim they have been harassed on the cycletrack and elderly residents have contacted The Citizen to say they are too afraid to go out.

But the manager at Salt Ayre, Howard Whiteside, says the travellers have not proved too much of a problem and have kept themselves to themselves.

The travellers claim they are in the area to celebrate a wedding and christening and will be moving on in a few days.

This week the council applied to the courts for a repossession order and they expect to move a team of bailiffs onto the site on Friday to end the illegal occupation. The authorities are keen for an organised withdrawal to ensure the travellers don't occupy another site in the district.

Chief Environment officer, David Robinson, explained: "This is an illegal occupation of council owned land and we've applied to the courts for a repossession order. We are monitoring the situation closely and all the agencies are coming together, hopefully on Friday, to instigate an organised withdrawal. We don't want them to merely set up elsewhere in the district."

The occupation resulted in two North Lancashire Football League matches being cancelled but according to the manager of Salt Ayre sports centre there had been very few difficulties.

Mr Whiteside said: "Some of the children have come in for a swim and some have used the showers but on the whole they have kept themselves to themselves and there's been no real problems."

But a number of residents contacted The Citizen claiming they had been harassed by the travellers while using the cyclepath.

One said: "A lot of residents are very frightened to use the cycletrack now and elderly residents are nervous just living around here.