POLICE intervened and forced travellers to move on from an illegal camp over concerns they would damage bank holiday trade.

Officers teamed up with Southend Council to shift ten caravans from the Seaway car park, off Lucy Road, Southend, where they had been camped for over a week.

The travellers, who arrived at the council-owned car park on Friday, April 22, were taking up 23 car spaces and ten coach bays- a third of the whole site.

As part of a community impact assessment, police asked traders and nearby residents how they were affected by the group.

Southend Council told officers it had lost £3,612 in revenue due to the car park spaces being taken up, with many traders noticing a drop in trade.

Reports of crime or antisocial behaviour had not increased.

On Saturday, Essex Police decided to take action and move the travellers on in a bid to stop them deterring visitors and causing seafront businesses to suffer.

Chief insp Simon Anslow, district commander for Southend, said that damage was caused to a lock in the car park when the group gained access to the site.

He said: "Last week, the council served notices and gave them 48 hours to leave but they didn't go in that time and they had told us that they were planning on staying across the bank holiday weekend.

"Ahead of the weekend, we reassessed the situation and discovered that the encampment was taking up at least a third of the car park, potentially limiting parking by half because nobody was parking near where they were.

"As a result of a community impact survey, we identified from seafront traders that a number of customers had commented that they could not get parked because of the space the travellers were taking up.

"From our assessment, we felt that we needed to use out legal powers to remove the travellers because the community was deprived of local amenities to a significant level, as well as an economic impact.

"We considered whether the loss of amenities, the potential loss of business and the actual loss of revenue versus the rights of the traveller community to live their way of life.

"We felt that the balance was such that it was necessary to use our powers under the Criminal Justice and Public Order act.

"The decision was not based on any prejudice or fears that can be associated with the travelling community."

The travellers left the car park by 2pm on Saturday without any hassle or confrontation.

It is not known where the group has moved to.

Seaway car park is set to be redeveloped into a leisure complex, with a cinema, restaurants, and hotel in the pipeline.