Squatters are to be evicted from a Ryedale gipsy site which has suffered thousands of pounds worth of damage over the last few months.

Ryedale District Council has been granted a court order to remove the group of illegal residents pitched at Traveller's Garth, Malton.

Over the last few months damage to amenity blocks on the site has mounted up to about £5,300.

In one incident a roof was removed, plumbing and electrical fittings destroyed and roof timbers damaged.

The council's gipsy site officer, Richard Etherington, said the vandalism had only occurred when the squatters had been camped on the site, but all efforts to pinpoint those responsible had failed.

He said: "We are currently waiting for North Yorkshire County Council's bailiffs to give us a day when we can enter the site and carry out the eviction.

"The squatters will be asked to leave, and if they refuse we will then tow them off the site to a place were they will not be an obstruction."

During the past few months there has been an increase in the number of empty pitches on the site, which opened in 1986; there are currently five vacancies with no applicants on the waiting list.

The council's deputy director of operations, Steven Oldridge, said once the squatters have been permanently barred from Traveller's Garth, the council will review the demand for pitches and the best way to manage the site.

He said: "One proposal that some authorities, such as Hambleton and Harrogate, have adopted is a policy of tendering site management to the National Gipsy Council for travelling families.

"We may also look at reducing the site, and cutting off the bottom end which has always been a problem area."

He added that a "period of stability" was needed on the site to allow the council to monitor its popularity with permanent residents, who in the past may have been intimidated by the squatters.

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