MORE than £90,000 was spent by Bournemouth and Poole councils on tackling unauthorised traveller camps this summer.

Bournemouth council confirmed it spent £78,000 of taxpayers’ money on the associated costs of the camps between April and September.

Poole council spent £8,000 on portable toilets, skips and cleaning with a further £3,000 used for evictions.

Leader of Bournemouth council, Cllr John Beesley, said his authority will do everything it can to rid the town of “these very unwelcome visitors”.

“The record in Bournemouth has been very robust in making sure that we protect our car parks and open spaces as well as we possibly can,” he added.

“To do this we have invested in preventative measures which include defences and on site security when necessary.

“We want to ensure that residents are inconvenienced as little as possible so that they can continue to enjoy the award-winning parks and open spaces we have in the town.

“We will continue to do everything we can within the law to rid our town of these very unwelcome visitors.”

Traveller camps sprung up throughout the conurbation and Bournemouth West MP Conor Burns branded the intruders “intimidating” and “offensive” after a group arrived at Slades Farm in August.

In Poole there have been 16 unauthorised encampments this year.

A spokesman for Poole council said seven of these groups were evicted through court action, two left following services of direction notices, one on private land was dealt with by the landowner and the remaining six departed prior to the council initiating formal action.

He added: “We have currently spent around £3,000, including staff costs, on evicting unauthorised encampments in Poole this year.

“We do not separately calculate other staff costs or cleansing time, as they are redeployed from other duties. We have also spent approximately £8,000 on the provision of skips and portable toilets at unauthorised sites, clearing up the site once the travellers have vacated and repairing damaged access points.”