ANGRY residents are calling for urgent action to clear travellers off playing fields outside their homes.

A camp of more than a dozen caravans has been set up at Feniscliffe playing fields, Blackburn - land owned by St Wilfrid's CE High School.

The school claims action is being taken to move the travellers on.

But people living around the playing fields say they are sick of having to put up with litter and noise from the site and want something done now.

One resident, who did not want to be named, said: "There are dogs all over the place and generators going all the time. They are using the trees as toilets and their wagons are ripping up the field.

"There is litter everywhere and everyone is sick of it."

Another said: "More moved on at the weekend and they are right in the centre of the field now. They are riding about on motorbikes at night, churning the field up. It is going to be unfit for use, and who is going to clear up the mess when they have gone?" Blackburn with Darwen Council leader Coun Malcolm Doherty said he had received a number of complaints from residents since the first travellers arrived two weeks ago.

"We cannot do anything because we don't own the land. It is up to the landowner. I am concerned about the damage they are causing but there is nothing we can do about it," he said.

Inspector Andrew Pratt of Blackburn Police said: "We have had lots of complaints from residents about travellers setting their dogs off, leaving litter or being noisy but we have had no reports of criminal activity."

He added that officers had not yet been asked to assist in the removal of the travellers from the land.

John Leigh, chairman of governors at St Wilfrid's School, said: "It is private land and I cannot discuss it but some action has been taken."

Residents campaigned to stop St Wilfrid's building a new school on the Feniscliffe site earlier this year.

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