A FRESH plea for a transit camp has been made after travellers returned to Longbarn and parked up on private land.

An encampment was spotted by concerned residents this morning, Wednesday, but the council has confirmed it is unlikely to take action itself because it does not own the former Bayleaf restaurant site, on Harpers Road.

Cllr Geoff Settle (LAB – Poulton North), who was previously on the planning for travellers task group, labelled the latest incident as an 'annoyance' for residents.

"This is an ongoing situation and there is little the council can do because it is on private land," he said.

"The bottom line is until we have a proper transit area for the travellers there is not a great deal we can do – we need to have one.

"I was on the last task group and we looked at this situation and all the suitable sites in Warrington using a structural approach.

"We carried out an objective assessment. We are legally bound to have a temporary transit site with appropriate facilities and it will save money in the long-term.

"The new task group may take notes on how we went about the process.

"We looked at every piece of land in Warrington and carried out a scoring system and derived a top 10. The top 10 were sites deemed by the system to be most suitable.

"It will have an impact on the community to some degree but any site will have to go to the planning committee for approval and will go through the proper process."

In September deputy council leader Mike Hannon was announced as the new chairman of the planning for travellers task group and given responsibility of identifying fresh transit camp recommendations.

The council caused widespread anger last August when it was revealed that it was setting aside £2 million of its budge to tackle unlawful travellers.

The authority has confirmed eleven caravans which entered Silver Lane in Risley last Friday have now left the site.

They were spotted after appearing to break a gate lock to get onto the land.