COUNCILLORS are voting this afternoon (Nov 13) whether to approve a scheme restricting access to a car park in Frenchwood, Preston.

The £4,500 project is aimed at preventing travellers from camping on the recreation ground next to Esplanade.

The plans follow a year of complaints by local residents, who say the area is turned into a rubbish tip each time the nomads invade.

Nigel Conway, of Preston's Parks Department, said: "They have been there on a number of occasions this year and that has caused ourselves and local residents a great inconvenience, both in terms of anti-social behaviour and damage to local facilities."

If approved, the scheme would limit access to the car park by putting a height barrier over the entrance and small mounds of earth around it.

The plans are a cheap alternative to a £22,000 project to stop all cars driving on to the park, a scheme, the council says, it can't afford. But the cheaper option doesn't come free and park officials have suggested paying for it for by cutting other provisions.

A report to the leisure services committee suggests reducing footpath resurfacing to Moor Park and sweeping the town's major parks on a monthly basis, rather than weekly, in a bid to save enough money to pay for the scheme.

In the meantime, members of the property sub-committee are considering a secret report on the possibility of providing travellers with a temporary site.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.