A TRAVELLING family has made an unprecedented undertaking to behave itself - in return for the right to continue living in the York area.

The deal was struck in the High Court just as two councils were seeking a ground-breaking injunction to ban the travellers from camping alongside highways across York, and along a corridor of land between the city and Malton.

Lawyers for the travellers had warned in May that the "exclusion order" would be opposed using Human Rights legislation, on the grounds that it threatened the family's traditional way of life.

City of York Council and North Yorkshire County Council said today they went to court after exhausting all other avenues in an attempt to deal with complaints of inappropriate, nuisance behaviour.

Considerably more than a hundred complaints have been received by York council alone over the past two-and-a-half years about the family, who have not been named.

The complaints have concerned a variety of problems, including damage to hedges by tethered horses and traffic hazards posed by the horses to passing motorists.

"We were seeking an injunction to ban the family from all of the City of York Council area and part of Ryedale because of the problems they have caused to local communities over several years," said Dick Haswell, York regulation unit manager, and Karen Galloway, environment solicitor for the county council, in a joint statement.

They said the trial agreement had been struck after considerable discussions prior to the hearing.

"Under this agreement - which will be brought back to the courts if it fails - the family has made a series of undertakings related to the size, location, duration and management of encampments; the keeping of animals including horses; and the behaviour of family members.

"The agreement also requires the family to seek a lawful campsite as soon as practicable."

They said the agreement would be closely monitored and reviewed in February, and if it failed they would not hesitate in resuming their case for an injunction.

The judge had gone to great lengths to explain the seriousness of the matter to each family member and warned them they would be excluded from the area or sent to prison if the agreement broke down.

The arrangement gave the family a chance to continue to live in the area, in which most members were born, but under rules which would hopefully prevent further public nuisance.

A member of the family, currently encamped in the Haxby area, told the Evening Press today he was "quite happy" with the undertaking, but the family's leader declined to comment.

The family's York solicitor, Julian Pheby, said: "I am pleased that a policy of tolerance has replaced a more hard-line one."

He said he had suggested that the family should give such an undertaking some months ago, but regrettably the councils had not then taken it on board.

He added that the travellers wished to carry on living in the York area because "that's where all the family live and the support systems are".

Updated: 11:55 Monday, November 04, 2002