LANDOWNERS across the Eastleigh borough are being urged to act now to prevent another summer invasion by travellers.

Last year the town became a prime target for travellers who, after setting up makeshift campsites, left a trail of devastation and a clean-up bill for council taxpayers running into thousands of pounds.

Today, Eastleigh police and Eastleigh Community Safety Partnership are calling on landowners to "seriously consider" taking simple and inexpensive measures to prevent unlawful access to private land and help eliminate unwanted trespass.

Eastleigh-based Chief Inspector Barry Talbot said: "Landowners and their agents really need to be aware that they have the legal responsibility to deal with trespassers and not the police, as many people believe. Trespass is a civil matter.

"Although the police do have powers to remove trespassers under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, they are very limited and any action taken has to be sensitively and carefully handled.

"Use of police powers has since been further constrained by virtue of case law and the European Convention of Human Rights legislation that applies to all members of our community."

Police action to remove trespassers, he said, would be limited to situations where evidence could identify specific individuals who had been responsible for serious public disorder or criminal offences above the level that the community concerned normally experienced.

But he warned that until - and if - provision was made for transitory stopping places, there was a high probability that people would trespass on land during the summer months as they moved through the county, adding that it was a national problem.

Historically, travellers were more likely to revisit sites they had used before and often moved on to sites being prepared for development because of the relative ease of access and use.

School sites closed for the six-week summer break had also been a target of travellers, with public parks and other open spaces.

In Eastleigh, the borough council has already undertaken and is planning preventative measures at several public open spaces which have been used by travellers in the past. The measures include earth banking, bollards and height barriers.

If travellers do set up camp in the borough, householders are being "strongly advised" not to accept doorstep offers of Tarmac work, tree felling, garden landscaping or general building work.

Police and the Eastleigh Community Safety Partnership say that the work is often sub-standard and the waste produced is invariably fly-tipped elsewhere, leaving local tax payers to pick up the cost of the clear-up.