A GROUP of travellers who left dozens of bin bags, litter and mess at a Taunton park has cost the council £2,000 in clear-up and legal costs.

A major clean-up operation to return Hamilton Park to its former state began when the group left – five days after Taunton Deane Council began legal action to evict them.

Deputy council leader Cllr Mark Edwards said he was delighted the travellers had moved on after their departure on Sunday.

He added: “It was extremely disappointing they chose to enter the park in the first place but the state they left it in was completely unnecessary and the lackof respect for the environment was beyond comprehension.”

Skaters and BMXers on the popular skate park next to the playing field said human excrement and discarded nappies had been found in the bowl section of the facility.

Skate park-user George Braeger, 20, told the County Gazette: “There were human faeces in the park we use every day and children use every day. It was disgraceful.”

And a spokesman from the council said the mess left behind included what is believed to be human excrement strewn across the grass and in the hedges.

Sally Woodbury, from the Federation of Gypsy Liaison Groups, who has called for more traveller sites to be set up in the county, said she does not condone the mess left at the park but criticised the way Taunton Deane Council handled the situation.

She added: “What Taunton Deane needs to do is sit back and think ‘we could have provided a toilet and skip and charged the travellers for it’ and then the clean-up costs would have been less.

"I’m more annoyed with the council than the travellers because they know what they have got to do but they won’t do it.”

A Somerset County Council spokesman said Somerset’s Housing Authorities completed a Gypsy and Traveller Accommodation Assessment survey in January 2011.

He said: “The county council previously owned and managed four residential sites across the county, ranging from eight to 21 traveller families on each, however, there was no duty to require it to do so, and there is no requirement for it to provide any new pitches.

“The sites were sold in late 2011 to an organisation set up specifically to manage traveller sites. The Middlezoy Transit Site is leased to the same company that bought the four residential sites. However, following vandalism in 2012 it remains unavailable for use.”

A spokesman for Clarke Willmott solicitors, which has an office in Taunton, said the travelling community are a recognised group with rights protected by law.

He said: “Local authorities and others have obligations to provide sites for travellers as opposed to ordinary squatters.

"You can only stop a traveller coming on to the park if you exclude you and me, so the council has a difficult task.”