Stray travellers camp latest update: Court proceedings set to start today in Harrogate

A spokesperson confirmed to the Harrogate Advertiser that a court hearing was to be heard today.

The council now anticipates the small clutch of five caravans and a number of cars will move on in the next couple of days.

The camp was first spotted on the grassland near Stray Rein last week.

Since then there have been various reports of travellers cars crossing over the Stray and rubbish bins being moved to the site of the camp.

Harrogate Borough Council first launched its legal efforts to end the situation nearly a week ago.

The question of illegal camps in Harrogate has become a bit of an annual occurrence, one which usually comes to the same end - attention from the police followed by action by Harrogate Borough Council to move the travellers on.

Earlier this summer saw the arrival of a travellers camp at Oatlands Park in Harrogate.

As tends to happen in such cases, Harrogate Borough Council reacted by instigating proceedings to evict the travellers.

There have been calls in recent years for longer-term solutions.

Some local opposition councillors in the Lib Dems and Labour Party say this long-running issue should be tackled by providing more temporary sites in the Harrogate district for travellers.

There are only two officially designated sites for travellers run by North Yorkshire County Council at the moment - located at Bickerton and near Thistle Hill in Knaresborough.