A charity has been left counting the cost after travellers camped out on its land for three days.
Around 10 vans moved on to the Lyme Green Settlement on Tuesday, March 23 and stayed until Thursday, March 23.
But the Lyme Green Settlement charity, which owns the land and provides accommodation for elderly and disabled people, says the visitors left piles of rubbish and an abandoned car which it has to pay hundreds of pounds to get rid of.
They say a Skoda Fabia has been abandoned without licence plates or a key, and human waste was also found in a wooded area used by nursery children for outdoor activities.
They said they had to pay to hire a skip and are getting quotes from a private environmental services company to clean up the ‘human waste’ found at the site.
Roy Walker, from Lyme Green Settlement, said: “They left the car park in a terrible state. It’s going to cost several hundred pounds to clear up. We’re a charity and this is the last thing we need.
“Luckily we didn’t have to pay to evict them because the police served a notice, but if it hadn’t been a nursery car park we would have had to pay that too. It’s been very stressful for our vulnerable residents. And using the children’s woodland den as a toilet is disgusting. We tidied up what we could but were not going to clean that up. We’re going to put a barrier at the entrance to stop this happening again.”
The travellers camped on a car park used by Tiny Adventures Nursery, preventing access by parents and residents.
They moved on after they were served wth a notice by the police.
Police were able to serve a notice because the vans were on an educational site.
A police spokesman said: “We increased patrols at the site and issued a section 61 notice to leave and they complied the next day. If it’s a normal private car park we can’t serve a notice to quit but in this case it was an educational premises.”
Penny Norbury, manager at the nursery which rents the site from the charity, said: “We had a big event for Mother’s Day and our parents had nowhere to park. Everyone has been really supportive. It’s really not fair when it’s a charity which has to foot the bill.”
Zoe Perry, deputy manager, said: “They’ve left a lasting impact.”
