SECRET plans by Southampton City Council to earmark a site at Stoneham Sports Ground as a permanent "transit" camp for travellers have outraged one of the city's leading sports clubs.

The Daily Echo understands that three sites at the sports ground are being looked at as temporary homes for travellers in a bid to clamp down on groups setting up camp illegally in other parts of the city.

Confidential negotiations are understood to have taken place between bosses at Eastleigh Borough Council and Southampton City Council since autumn last year to draw up a shortlist of the possible sites.

But the plans have been condemned by members of the BTC Sports Club who say that the site would force the club to install costly extra security measures on their own playing fields at Stoneham Lane.

Chairman of the BTC Sports Ground, Damon Brown, told the Daily Echo that ambitious plans by the club to upgrade the site and host more junior football games may have to be put on hold.

He said: "We might as well close up and go home. I can't believe it. The last thing we need is travellers next door. We would have to have full-time security 24 hours a day."

The controversial scheme comes just two months after the Chief Constable of Hampshire, Paul Kernaghan, called for temporary sites to be set up to deal with the growing problem of travellers occupying land illegally.

New laws due to come into force this year will allow police to evict travellers who have camped on land illegally.

But police forces will only be able to evict travellers speedily if councils provide designated sites.

Over the summer last year, city bosses played an increasingly frustrating game of cat and mouse with travellers who had set up camp illegally on council land.

The group blighted residents' lives and left a costly trail of destruction across Hampshire. They pitched caravans on land off Stoneham Lane, Cunningham Gardens in Bursledon and Tollbar Way in Hedge End.

In Fareham, travellers moved on to land at Peak Lane in Stubbington and Fareham Leisure Centre. At Holly Hill Park in Sarisbury Green they drove over gravestones and left human excrement behind.

Groups also set up camp illegally on sites at Southampton Common and later moved on to St Mark's Junior School in Shirley costing city chiefs £50,000 to evict them.

Southampton City Council's Cabinet member for communities and regeneration Councillor Liz Mizon, pictured right, said: "The city council and all of its neighbours, including the county council, are working to find possible locations for travellers' transit sites.

"This is in line with government requirements.

"Three sites are being looked at in Southampton as are sites in each of the surrounding districts. All of the councils are working together.

"No decisions have been made and no consultations have taken place. At this stage the location of the possible sites is not being made public.

"The reason for this is that none of them may be considered finally suitable and therefore this work would not be taken any further."

Leader of Eastleigh Borough Council Councillor Keith House said finding sites for travellers was a "big challenge" for local authorities.

He said: "If Southampton are looking at sites I encourage them to do that."