Harlow Council applies for town-wide ban on illegal traveller sites

Harlow Council said it had dealt with 110 illegal traveller camps since October 2013

Travellers could be banned from setting up illegal camps across the whole of an Essex town after its council applied for a High Court injunction.

Since October 2013, Harlow Council has dealt with 110 sites being used as "unauthorised encampments".

Court papers have been served on two current illegal camps at Coldharbour Road and Horsecroft Road, as well as 454 "parcels of land".

A hearing for an interim injunction will take place on 3 March.

The court order, if granted, would protect 320 "vulnerable sites" including areas used as illegal encampments in the past, highway verges, schools and private land.

If the injunction is breached, the person responsible can be fined or imprisoned for contempt of court.

Harlow Council applied for the order alongside Essex County Council, which said the two authorities had put "months of planning" into the legal process.

Public health notices were served on a number of travellers at an illegal site at the end of last year

Jon Clempner, the leader of Harlow Council, said he was "very pleased" the two councils had joined forced to see a "town-wide injunction".

Both councils said they could not comment further on the injunction application until after the High Court hearing.

But they said they could "fully understand the frustration persistent unauthorised encampments have caused the community".

Last year, public health notices were served on 24 travellers amid concerns over human waste and rubbish dumped at an illegal site in former school grounds.

In October, Harlow Council said it had spent £20,000 clearing 68 unlawful camps in the previous few months,