TRAVELLERS camped on a huge Hampshire Coun-ty Council-owned playing field in Stoneham Lane, Eastleigh, are vowing to stay put until they are thrown off the site.

The council was due to go to Southampton County Court in a bid to secure the legal go-ahead to evict up to 30 caravans that have been on the Monks Brook playing fields for six weeks.

However, a spokesman for the travellers told the Daily Echo: "We will stay until they kick us off. We have nowhere to go. There are not enough sites."

Since their arrival, the Monks Brook site has turned into an eyesore littered with refuse.

The travellers have also been blamed by members of the British Transport Club's bowls and football sections for causing thousands of pounds of damage to their adjoining clubhouse and sports field.

Ford also had to find a new venue for the company's huge centenary party at the weekend because the event was due to be staged at the sports club - but it was too badly damaged.

A travellers' spokesman, who did not wish to be named, said the council had brought rubbish skips to the Monks Brook site but had failed to empty them.

"We burned them to stack more rubbish in them. The site is untidy but if they had emptied the skips there wouldn't be rubbish lying around, which is a health hazard for our kids.

"The dogs are also ripping the rubbish out of the skips because they haven't been emptied."

He also claimed that travellers' were made scapegoats, adding: "The gypsy has a bad name. The first people that they blame is the gypsies. Everything is handed down to us. Our grandfathers fought for this country but we are second class citizens."

He added: "We travel all over, but we can't get anywhere to settle. It is a countrywide problem. Our ideal would be to have a permanent site where we could build our own washrooms or individual sites where we could settle. The people living in houses don't have the problems we have. We are shifted from pillar to post. If they provided the sites there wouldn't be a problem and the council would be getting rent from us."