TRAVELLERS have set up an illegal camp on land next to Eastleigh's Lakeside Country Park.

Caravans started moving on to the site off South Street, pictured right, late on Friday night and more arrived on Saturday morning.

Today more than a dozen caravans were spread across land near Eastleigh Council's South Street allotment site.

Two were parked immediately adjoining the narrow-gauge track of the popular Lakeside Railway, which draws visitors from across the region.

Senior Eastleigh councillor Peter Luffman, who represents the town's South ward, said he had received

telephone calls from worried residents living close to the land.

He said: "I had phone calls to my house. When people were waking up on Saturday morning there were 12 caravans there.

"I have already left a message for the traveller liaison officer at Hampshire County Council and I have been in contact with Eastleigh Council's deputy chief executive, Roberto Tambini."

Cllr Luffman said he was concerned at the situation, commenting: "When you have travellers around, it is not that they come and go but it is what they leave behind and the trouble it causes the local community."

Pointing to council plans to build homes on allotment land, Cllr Luffman said the travellers were affecting the only peace residents were likely to get before building started - if the council ultimately won approval for the scheme.

Less than two years ago scores of travellers left behind an eyesore which cost thousands of pounds to clear after occupying a nearby site in Stoneham Lane for six weeks.

The huge encampment of about 30 caravans at the Hampshire County Council-owned Monks Brook playing field sparked a flood of complaints.

When the travellers finally moved on, rubbish littered the site, along with burned-out cars and refuse skips, huge piles of asphalt, garden rubbish and gas cylinders.

Even children's soft toys had been left on the turf.